Home?

It's been ages since I've been able to write about moving back home to Trinidad. To be able to describe the traumatic rift of uprooting yourself from one reality and replacing it with another. The physical aspect of that change is momentary. It takes far longer for your mind and soul to catch up and recognise that change has taken place.
My last weeks in London I was unable to confront the emotional aspects of leaving. I couldn't confront saying goodbye to people, places that I loved. It is only now, almost a year later that I'm dealing with the fall-out of my choices. Once cannot anticipate the psychic fracturing that occurs with that kind of displacement. I didn't anticipate it.

The truth is, I miss London. I miss me in London.  I miss my girlfriends, great coffee, the theatre and the temperate climate. I miss the constant stimulation, variety of foods and the continent. I think of this in juxtaposition to rolling hills and unrelenting heat. I tried not to romanticise Trinidad too much before I moved back. I kept reality firmly in check with daily,online, readings of the Trinidad Express.

I forget about this conflict, though,  when I walk up Chancellor Hill and am rewarded at its summit by the view of the city. The golden and candy-floss coloured Poui blossoms heralding the first rains takes me back to a more innocent time as does having a snow-cone round the Savannah. Now that I'm home I wonder how I could have ever forgotten about mango season or making kites and  the dust kicking up behind you as you run along trying to make them fly.