I DO STUFF, MAKE THINGS AND ANNOY PEOPLE

I was recently told that my apartment looks like a museum. That may have to do with the fact that I've been collecting seed pods, rocks, wasps nests, bones and other natural history objects for most of my life. I have butterflies, dragonflies, cicadas and other insects in frames, decades-old botanical pressings sitting behind glass, paintings and a small collection of masks from around the world. I get weird looks when I reveal that all the drapes, curtains and many of the cushion covers in my home were custom made, by me. From solid wood, I built three sturdy beds and headboards and updated old furniture. I have been the woman at the hardware store with my Moleskine full of notes, drawings and measurements who annoyed attendants with details of the cuts I needed. On several occasions I walked many blocks with piles of cut lumber on my shoulders and sometimes took the subway to get them to my apartment. My neighbors could hear me drilling, sanding or blending while my living room and kitchen are transformed into carpentry, painting, sculpture, sewing, soap-making and baking studios. The people in my building and my Harlem neighborhood call me the plant lady, and justly so since I first started gardening in Harlem with plants that I brought from my previous homes, while the movers were unloading the furniture into my Harlem apartment. That was twenty years ago. Since then I have schlepped thousands of plants from the Farmers Market in Union Square and from trips to Massachusetts to the common open space on my block and to the community garden two blocks away. I have a collection of pruners, saws, wood shavers, an old blue enamel ambassador sewing machine, old cameras and film.

Sometimes people are uncomfortable in my presence because they don't know what to make of me. I never seem to fit into the box or boxes that some think a person who looks like me should be in, and there seems to be a need to make me fit into some space that makes them more at ease. I have been told that I have too much passion, that I have too much presence, that I have too much personality. I sound too....different; that I am an over-achiever and that I "make other people look bad". It seems like my spirit irritates some people's demons. I blame it on my mother, my father and to some extent the environment in which I grew up. We were poor people but to our neighbors we seemed to be doing well. That was because our parents had very high standards and expected us kids to work hard and live our lives guided by certain principles. We stood tall but never considered ourselves better or lower than other people; we were never boastful or known for asking for help. The church had quite a bit of influence over the way we lived our lives, as well as the reserve and dignity our parents displayed. The high, less traveled road was the expected path.

We built things. I watched and sometimes helped my ten mason-carpenter-plumber-electrician brothers attach wire to rebar, mix and pour concrete, mortar walls, tile bathrooms, nail galvanize and expand our home. When I was a little girl my brother Raymond made furniture of soldered pieces of tin. Raymond deftly sewed, stuffed and dimpled mattresses and sofas for my Skipper doll and for my sister Stephanie's Barbie doll. Our baking trays and bread pans were his creations as well as the square tapered concrete flower pots that displayed my mother's bougainvilleas and velvety begonias. At the moment my brother Gregory is plugging away at completing a rather large concrete house with many rooms. He also gardens and never ceases to amaze me with his plant collection, including the awesome night-blooming dragon fruit plants.

We ate well too and grew up to be food snobs. Our beautiful mother could rival Martha Stewart in many ways. Our yard was always teeming with chickens, speckled guinea fowls, mallards, peeking ducks (with the curled tail feathers) and geese. At one time we kept caged pheasants and rabbits and though I vaguely remember them, I still remember the smell of pigs and the banana-peel slop we fed them. Mom was the butcher, baker, candle-wax flower and dress maker. She was famous for her hand beef pies with rich flaky crusts. She baked marbled cakes and iced wedding cakes with delicate scallops, shells and roses made with cream of tarter and hints of rosewater. She cured hams including beef and turkey. As kids we spent many hours (adding up to days of our lives) "washing'' salted butter for black rum cakes. We churned ice-cream made from sour-sop, fresh coconut or barbadine. We plucked chickens and I remember well the feeling of the warm insides of the chicken before cutting it into pieces that would be seasoned with Chado Beni , ginger and garlic for the Sunday lunch after Church. With our mother's guidance we expertly cracked coconut shells, drank the tasty water, removed the meat, grated the flesh and juiced it to make oil for our hair and brown bodies. We learned to open cans with a simple knife, without losing fingers.

Saturday was always the day we made soup for lunch; cow heel soup, red bean soup, fish soup, all with pieces of boiled green bananas, dumplings, and assorted root vegetables. Saturday soup is so good, never mind the sweltering temperatures inside and outside the house. We baked bread on Saturdays too, and throughout the year we made wine and preserves from fruits of the season; fruits that most westerners have never heard of and would be thrilled to taste. Mom crocheted doilies and knitted baby clothes; she made intricate round cushions, elaborate curtains and bed linens with frills and scallops. We worked alongside this good-natured, gospel-singing woman in her garden of roses and orchids and helped braid long ropes of vetiver grass that she brought back from hunting trips with my father and older brothers. Mom meticulously starched and pressed my father's police uniforms, while we kids were charged with the job of polishing Daddy's shoes, a chore I particularly enjoyed. We learned that white clothes can (and must) remain white by adding blue and by bleaching them in the the sun for hours, and how to remove rust stains with lemon juice. My brothers learned to tame their gamey armpit odors with burnt lemons. As children we absorbed all this and more. We learned by watching and doing. Mom always kept us busy and we flourished under the umbrella of her watchful eyes and devotion to God.

As a young man Daddy was tall, thin, dark and handsome; a man whose presence was authoritative and dignified. He was known to be of formidable character. Like Mom, he was respected by all who knew him. The young man married my mother when she was a widow with six children and brought along three boys from his previous marriage. Together they would raise another seven children and all sixteen of us grew up together under one (frequently expanding) roof, with the salary of a police officer father.

Dad was a great whistler and birder. He kept caged song birds when I was a child and today sits with his binoculars looking at and for birds that frequent our neighborhood of Rio Claro, Trinidad. He is a self taught man and educates himself through extensive reading. At the age of ninety my father still has the eyes of a hawk and misses nothing. In a country where broken English is widely spoken, he insisted that his children spoke proper English and would often have us repeat sentences or replay scenarios to correct improper vocabulary. He himself speaks proper English, with old English and patois words and phrases that most people have forgotten or rarely use today. Dad believes in elbow grease. Dishes, sinks, surfaces, floors, windows, clothes, shoes, had to be spanking clean. Even old and dented pots and pans had to be scrubbed until shiny. Dishonest, lackadaisical and idle people and persons with loose lips do not fare well with my father.

As a teen I dyed fabric and made most of my clothes. I could cut patterns for flared, a-line and pleated skirts. I made my own school uniform skirts and I loved loose skirts with pockets. After a long love affair with yellow, (for which I was sorely ridiculed) the color green became my favorite and army-green cotton fabric was my choice for pants and skirts. When I turned twenty, I created the wardrobe for my first real job, as a primary school teacher and it was no wonder that my sister made her own gown for her wedding in Glasgow years later. I developed my own style and took it with me to Kingston, where it got noticed during the two years I studied art there. Then as it is now, often my first instinct is to make the thing that I wanted, or to buy second-hand, good quality clothes and other items rather than consume or surround myself with poorly made stuff.

As I age I find that I do not want to be as resourceful and generous as my mother, or as meticulous and exacting like my father. It has taken many years and I still check myself; I am learning to curb my tendency to be open towards others or to be generous with my ideas, time and energy. I am finding that I still surprise many people in unintentional ways. Hard work is in my DNA but caring about doing great work when others do not often has unexpected consequences. The reserve of my father is a trait I aim to practice as I learn that there are many who attempt to absorb, subdue or taint my energy. My generosity needs to be earned. It is a work in progress.

Similar to my mother's devotion to the Church, I am devoted to a life in gardens. Maybe it is because many trees are majestic beings that have weathered time. Like rivers, what stories old tress would tell if they could speak to us. Trees create beautiful cathedrals and frame the places in which I find peace, solace and perhaps God too, by connecting me to the land. It may be that feel closest to my mother and to all my ancestors while working with plants and in soil. Here in New York, with no land to call my own, I garden anyway and anywhere I can. I make things. I paint and draw and sing. I bake from scratch and enjoy ingredients that I can grow myself, in a tiny garden plot, while living in a forth floor apartment. I was born without the privilege of wealth but into the care of dignified, resilient and hard working people who knew how to make a good and simple life from the little they were given. They did so with integrity and without fear, even if they annoyed others. I make the best of the gifts I've been given. I know who I am. Mommy and Daddy taught me well.