Terrible Saturday, Pleasant Sunday

What a weekend it has been! Typical of life itself, where one moment things are going well, and then another moment, all hell breaks loose. I always say, life is like a pendulum, and the darkest hour is when the pendulum is swinging away from you so during those challenging times, you just need to be patient and wait for the pendulum to swing back your way.

So check me out on Saturday, laid up in bed with one of my migraines and without a morsel to eat. No, it’s probably not as crucial as it sounds since I doubt I’ll ever be in any danger of starving to death. However, this weekend I found myself in a position where I had no ready cash (read no money I could get at the ATM) and no food at home since I’ve only been using home to bathe and change. I’ve really been living at UWI these days. So to borrow a term from Jamaican Queen, I was broke like a bad joke this weekend. Not that I needed money for much, just to put gas in the car, and put some food in the fridge. It was fine though, I have relatives just around the corner whose fridge is always open to me. However, with a migraine on a rampage, I really wasn’t inclined to leave my house so I just basically grit my teeth, beared the hunger and the pain and prayed for sleep to claim me.

Then comes Sunday. Normally, I’d give some money to the security guy from Saturday night to purchase Sunday’s newspapers from the paper guy who passes by about 5am and I’d pick them up from the guard house at about 7am. I was suffering too much to even walk to the gate last night, so I got up this morning, groaning at the thought of having to go on the road to get the papers myself. When I saw that it was raining, this only added to my distress, but I can’t not have the papers and I have to read them early. Can you imagine my delight when I neared the gate and was stopped by the security who happily advised me “Miss Gela, mi have de paper dem yah so.”

“You have both o dem?”

“Yeah man, dem deh ya inna de guard house.”

That was a beautiful start to the day. Later in the morning while going through the papers, a steaming cup of ginger tea at hand, my neighbor called to let me know he was going to Hellshire. I told him to bring back fish and festival for me. About 11:00am a male friend/ex-co-worker dropped by with his girlfriend and step-daughter who was visiting from the States. Nice little lyme, still no food to offer my guests. At this point the only thing I’d consumed were several cups of tea, a bag of cashew nuts, and some Milky Ways which I shared with my guests.

At 1:00pm another friend called to ask if I wanted him to bring around some sweetsops he had for me. I told him to come by about 4pm. By this time, it’s raining again and I had no intention of leaving the warmth and comfort of my house. I just prayed that I wouldn’t get another headache. Friend came by about 4:15pm with a bag of 8 big sweetsops. I haven’t had sweetsop in years. He was kind enough to take me to my relatives where I was loaded up with chicken, bammy, irish potatoes, ripe bananas, more cashew nuts, rice. I now had enough food to feed the entire apartment block. Soon after I got back home, my neighbor returned from Hellshire with fish and festivals. Later, I knocked on his door to offer him some of my sweetsops as a Thank You for the fish and in return, was given a big ‘ole Julie mango. Can life get any better?

So you see, yesterday I starved, today I’m having a feast.

Just as I thought that the day really couldn’t get any better, I got an email from a friend who writes a weekly column in one of our local papers, advising me that he has an invitation for me to attend cocktails for the launch of UWI Mona Academic Conference, themed: Writing Life, Reflections by West Indian Writers, where I’ll meet some of our caribbean writers, namely Derek Walcott, one of two Nobel Laureates from the caribbean who will be there. Oh Joy!