COVER -> MY GLASS HOUSE
WARWICK, BERMUDA -15 May, 2001 - I landed in Bermuda slightly before noon today and it was immediately the sense of the new-but-familiar I expected. Walking down from the plane on the metal stairway, the pastel airport building, the cerulean blue water all around one. When I arrived at my brother's house, my mother, her surviving sister and my uncle were seated around the dining room table. We kissed and I was directed to take my bags down the hallway to the back bedroom. The first thing my mother asked me was if I was hungry.
I sat quietly as the elders continued their conversation. My history lesson was just beginning. My cousin Dorothy (daughter of one of my grandfather's brother's children) arrived with a striking younger woman -- probably in her late thirties, who smiled, but said very little. She was not introduced. Cousin Dorothy greeted me formally, but gave me a big hug and proclaimed that it "might take a long time to get here, but it is good when you finally do." I hadn't been to Bermuda in a decade, and seldom since I was six years old. I was the "prodigal" that people only heard about or found on the Web.
As my Aunt Hester and Uncle Cal bid their farewells, Hes -- leaning to accept my embrace -- asked if I spoke Spanish. I thought that was a strange thing to ask.
More local gossip and family stories ensued, until Hyacinth, a friend of my mother's, arrived. Only after Dorothy and the young woman left did I learn that she was also a relative and part of my family history. She had just flown in from Cuba that afternoon and my Mom referred to her (in absentia) as "Ms. Cuba," and "The Communist" to Hyancinth. It suddenly struck me -- I asked about it excitedly! -- as a child I had heard stories about an uncle who had gone off to Cuba before the revolution. Nobody had heard from him for years. Some relatives had even gone to Cuba to try to look him up. "Was this one of his grandchildren?" I asked.
"She says she is!" my mother snorted. "But for all we know she's the child of the girl your uncle adopted! We don't know. But now they're coming over here claiming property and causing a scandal. It's been in the papers."
It turns out that my grand-uncle stayed in Cuba, fathered a daughter and adopted another. The lovely young woman was a Cuban relative of mine, coming back to open old wounds and claim her inheritance. Or that's my mother's version of the story. My brother says she probably is one of the family and nobody from our branch of the family should get involved in issues that don't directly affect us. But he doesn't listen to the endless gossip and chronicling of funerals of my mother's generation: all the old stories and grudges and gossip that filled my afternoon.
The parade continued as I sat silently letting it all wash over me, only interrupting the flow of words in that distinctive Bermudian lilt to go outside and smoke a cigarette, watch the scooters buzz by down the hillside, the women stroll along carrying their babies, the soft wind rustling through the flowered trees. It was a lovely day, in the mid-sixties but dry. Perfect for someone who had spent so many years in San Francisco. A child of about eleven, I guessed, name Rebecca arrived. She said that her mother had told her to stay with my mother until she, the mother, returned home from work. Rebecca retired to a little alcove at the entrance to the house.
My sister-in-law, Martha Rudell, who all of us in the family call "Rudell," but who even some of my mother's generation call "Mrs. Amis," the person who had reunited me with my family after my long-estrangement, came home from her day of teaching. (She claims that she has retired, but seems to work every day despite that event -- subbing for one teacher or another.) A bright smile and a warm hug. Some teasing. She quickly learns about my day of "History Lesson" from the parade of relatives and friends, when showing me her new plants. She is planning flowers for the patio, otherwise dominated by the large satellite dish. We laugh and compare notes and wonder where I will decide to live next....
This evening when we talked, my mother revealed to me that our family only goes back 100 years, four generations, here in Bermuda. This is news to me. My Irish-American pal, Mike's, family goes back seven generations in San Francisco and people still call then Irish. Four generations is the blink of an eye. How can these people really call themselves Bermudians? I wonder. It turns out that my mother's grandfather moved his family to these islands from Turk Island in the Cayman's. This revelation is all the more shocking to me because of the years of my life, since childhood, when I've heard these Bermudian relatives of mine talk about how low-life West Indians are. This is the Arriviste Syndrome at its best, I think. And now I know -- thinking of the uncle who ran off to Cuba, of my great-grandfather pulling up stakes and moving to Bermuda, of my mother meeting my father in America -- that my wanderlust is not just a personal trait, it is in the blood...I think back to the ride from the airport, when my brother told me that he had learned only within the last year that our mother was born in the parish of Paget, rather than Pembroke as he believed, and how that revealed that the secretiveness that others have accused me of regarding my personal particulars is also something passed on to me. My brother is 61 years old and is still uncovering facts about our family.
My mother tells me that Uncle Claudius, the one who went off to Cuba, was under constant guard while he lived there. Bodyguards from Castro's government accompanied him everywhere as he was "honored" for having discovered some pesticide which fought off insects that had plagued the crops.
18 May, 2001 - I have now been on Bermuda for three days and already Rudell has taken me to a celebration, Harbor Night. Stalls of vendors line the blocked off streets, people meander below the cruise ships and strung lights, music festoons the night which culminates with a performance by the gumbeys, the island's traditional dancers. It is Bermuda Heritage Month, she tells me, with celebrations happening around the island ushering in the tourist season. May 24th is Bermuda Day, when there will be a large parade, lots of festivities and dancing.
The weather here has been mild thus far, "cold" the Bermudians say, with the temperature hovering in the mid 60s (Fahrenheit.) By the weekend the weather people predict the temperature will reach 75 degrees F. I am happy. The weather suits my clothes. I joke that these are like warm days in San Francisco. The ocean's breezes are fresh and marvelous. It has rained already, too. The ghosts of my ancestors are dancing. But now I know I need to complete my history lesson by learning about the Caymans. Maybe the trail, after Africa, has its root there. I certainly hope so... But it would not surprise me to learn that some other wandering grandfather came to Turk Island from some other place...
And the odd thing about learning of Turk Island and Cuba is that it opens the possibility that there are people related to me all over the Atlantic and the Caribbean.
The Kindness of Strangers
That wonderful line of Williams' seems to suit my life so well. The Saturday before I left the States, I received a letter and going-away gift from Loyal Reader FAYE RILEY of LeCompton, Kansas. She says that some spirit moved her to send me along something to carry me through my journey.
When I go to spend my last night in the States with fellow scribe ROBIN MILLER, he decides that it is needed that I get more Random Access Memory (RAM) for my laptop, so he takes me to the CompUSA near his house and purchases it for me as his going-away present.
These random acts of kindness affect me more deeply than people know. They spur me on to keep producing this effort, even at those dark times when I wonder if anyone is visiting or listening....
Keep me in your prayers. And continue to visualize a paradise for me.
THINGS ON MY AGENDA THIS WEEK
1. Getting comfortable with logging on once a day and doing all my Internet business during that session. Getting accustomed to the expensive connections outside of the United States and how that will impact my work and surfing habits.2. Finding out where the story starts and the ghosts of the ancestors can actually be found.
3. Charting the new course. (Wish me luck!)
4. Getting back to being able to say "Things I Love This Week."
Thanks for coming back this week.
"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching..."
Rod
Our Editor does listen!