Yesterday I spent time navigating my old city. It was not a choice. I had been scheduled to work and ended up at the wrong address, largely because I believe I don’t want to be doing what II have been trying to determine if it’s the place where I want to lay my hat.

Wait.

That’s not true. I know I don’t want to settle there. I have just been trying to convince myself that it makes the most sense. There is a comfort in being there. I know the place. It is, to a degree, in my bones. But I don’t want to be there. Even in my current circumstance, which is less than ideal, I don’t want to return there and nest. Even as I write, effectively homeless, in limbo between my last destination and the next (wherever it may be), I prefer to remain where I am at the moment in a place, which is rather joyless to be quite honest.

What struck me about my city is the level of entitlement of most who live there. I see and hear it in acquaintances (that’s all I really have left there at this point, no one I’d call a friend in the strictest sense of that word) that still live there. It is a provincial place and insular despite being one of the top five largest cities in this country and a world class one to boot. That provincialism was always so hard for me. It shouldn’t be provincial, much like this country, but it is and that has always been difficult for me. I have lived in places where provincialism was expected and while I didn’t like it, it did make sense. I feel a bit like a stranger wondering how I managed to fit in all those years past. Did I display such levels of entitlement? Or, did I never entirely fit and instead just chose to ignore it because I didn’t know any better or frankly, because it was just easier. I know the answer.

I don’t mean to suggest that my city does not possess its charms. On the contrary, it can be glorious. Just not for me, at least not anymore.

The Danes are the first to introduce a tax on foods high in saturated fat…First I was thinking it was on the large and in charge set and lamenting the fact that I won’t be going there any time soon since I’ve gotten a little chunky after being in the States so long.

Read about it here at the BBC new site.

Fall.

I’ve been waiting for these all year…

Pumpkins for Sale (photo by Stephanie Wallace Photography)

I love pumpkins.  The last time I had some, I was in Jamaica, where they are generally sold by the wedge in the market, meaning you tell the woman selling veg (and it’s usually a woman) about how much you want, she slices of a big chunk and you take it home to do with it what you will. In Jamaica that generally means something savory, and even more likely as an ingredient to soup. Pumpkin beef is nice.

Almost forgot, I’ve had some since then. While in Turkey, I received a gift of pumpkin jam from Sare, a woman who came to see me speak in Adana. It wasn’t at all like what we of as jam here in the States. It was more like candied pumpkin, Sare has a few example of Turkish style jams on her site. It was sweeeeet and crunchy; the little chunks of pumpkin cut into the suits you find on playing cards bathing in a sweet, sweet sugar syrup. I thought it was sort of a spoon sweet type of thing. Sadly, I didn’t take a photo. It was so pretty. Have to decide what I will do with my favorite amongst autumn’s bounty.

I promise when I figure it out there will be pictures!

It’s been three months since I landed in Jamaica.  I am back -briefly- in the States before heading to Turkey for work and then back to Jamaica.

While there, I was robbed, I loved and lost, I was swindled and I had a harrowing  encounter with a cockroach that at one point ended up sitting next to me on a pile of folded clothes on my bed.  It would not be a lie to say that I am still traumatized.

Now I am looking at the future thinking that it looks pretty bright in spite of the crushing debt that living in an economic depression for the last three years has created.  It all feels manageable.  I won’t lie and say that I don’t miss Lily or  wish J was heading into the future with me.  But things look good, you know?  And, really, constantly looking backward never got anybody anything but a stiff neck.

I am preparing to move to Jamaica.  It’s been a rollercoaster .  I am about to embark on a new phase of life with another person, in another country, doing a new job.  It’s all just so much.  Here, I am trying to manage my possessions, make money, place my pet in a safe environment, and tie up a few loose personal ends.

My plan for the future though is to live and love and work.

Yes.

That song is stuck in my head.  It’s from a commercial from the late 1970s.  But I am headed back soon, to Jamaica.  Two weeks before I left for my trip back in February, I had no idea I was even going.  I just left everything behind and went.  Two days after my arrival my life changed for good.  Well upon arrival my life changed for good, but two days later, I met J.  Three days after that he gave me pineapples as I stood at his cart in the Parade in downtown Kingston, and three days after that we sat in Emancipation Park chatting (& kissing) until late at night.  One the fourth day we sat in a secluded area next to the water in the Tivoli Gardens area (yes, that Tivoli Gardens) talking, while drinking coconut water and eating naseberries and coconut jelly.  J. is kind of amazing.

But that’s only part of the story.  I found that Jamaica could be the place for me at this moment in my life.  So I am returning.  In part to be with J. and in part to start fresh and write and work.  I am not running, I am simply setting up shop…I want to make a home for myself and I think it’s gonna be there.  But it’s all unfolding in ways I would have been awfully resistant to before.

I am preparing.  I am ready.

Just read an article about the Old Spice guy being hot called “The Evolution of Black Male Sex Symbols”  Anyway, when I noticed this on the Internet (I don’t have a television) I was pretty amazed to see that they had a black man pitching things on “mainstream” television purely on the strength of his own (non-hypersexualized yet hypersexualized) sexuality. I mean he isn’t singing, dancing, rapping, making boxing or football references, or wearing a smoking jacket and holding a brandy snifter with smooth jazz playing in the background. That’s good…progress, I guess, (according to the author of this article anyway) however, just so everyone knows, he’s not that hot. He’s pretty average actually, we’ve got some real stunners, actually, and he is not in the club, much like Beyonce, but that’s another story.

While this does represent some sort of shift in what Americans are willing to accept as being sexy or attractive, it really doesn’t at the same time.  Black people are vilified and sexualized.  That’s how it goes not just in America but around the world.  What I find interesting is the formula that authors/producers/everyone who’s not Black (or whichever non-white group is in question) finds a representative of the race (or ethnic/cultural group in question) as a representative and expert to speak on a particular issue.  Yawn.  What I want to see is hot, strapping, and streetwise Devonte in a towel pitching Old Spice on ABC on a Tuesday night.  I want to see him just being himself.  But wait, do I?  Actually I don’t want to see any of it.

Kind of amazing that I’ve decided to start another blog.  But this is personal, you know, anything that strikes my fancy–food or otherwise.  And damn it, I need that right now.  It’s been a long road.  A long three years of growth and setbacks and figuring shit out.  Now it’s mostly figured, so here we go…Stay tuned.