Follow Your Heart

Living out large: Follow Your Heart
Okay. It's been two and a half years. Time to escape this f...king trap.
I cannot imagine why people aspire to come to this god-forsaken country. All the houses look the same, small, cramped, no, no front garden. Everything takes place in the back. And the weather.
Let's not go there. The most unpredictable f...king weather on the face of the world.

You get up in the morning and it is frigging bleak, by midday the sun is out: for five minutes, then rain, then hail. God forbid, my body is constantly traumatised. The neurological condition that I have learned to live with, cannot take the drama. ‘Ah want to go home!'

And so, after a three-hour trek to the Home Office there I am in a queue trying to withdraw my application. What are the consequences? Who cares? I never came here to be supported by the state. So they pay my rent. Right! And give me food vouchers. Right!

So I go to the counter and ask for my passport. The next three hours are spent upstairs in a hall full of others plying for residence in the Land of Hope and Glory. I want my freedom. Finally they call my number. Cannot even speak to the attendant properly as the offices are not wheelchair friendly. Opps. I did not tell you that I am in a wheelchair.

No. London, England. The land of hope and Glory is not wheelchair friendly.
Travelling is a nightmare. Only forty percent of the buses have ramps that are functional. Went to see ‘The Lion King' last year, forty-four pounds ticket mind you, and there was no wheelchair access in the theatre before the show. In fact there were no spaces for wheelchair bound patrons. Well, that's life.

Anyway got my passport made the sign of the cross and wheeled myself back home.

I was on my way. Going home. Travelling on one of those planes that have been passing over my lonely bed for months. The excitement peaked.

No one was to know of the trip. Most of all Social Services. They always in meh business. Somehow thy feel as though dey have to know your every move. Wha it is? Ah in prison or what? When you are in the system you do not have a life. This is all an illusion. To me it is a trap and the longer one remains in the system the more trapped one becomes.

And I am a free spirit, so f...k that. I searched the Internet, called travel agencies and finally found a way out. Excel Airways was to be my escape.

In silence I made my escape. Off to Gatwick. Boarding to Tobago. Take off. Free at last. Don't think that I have smiled like this in years.

Twelve hours later the plane landed in Tobago. Words cannot describe the emotion. Palm trees, blue waters and sandy beaches. I had forgotten what it was like. We seldom appreciate what we have got.

Of course, once back home one has to re adjust to the nature and pace and laid back nature of the people. This culture shock was vicious but thankfully short lived. After all ‘dis is where ah come from.'

Sweet Tan T. Here I was in my home. Hoping to be accepted. The prodigal come home to find redemption as well as several bottles of Black Label.

Checked in to a guesthouse in Woodbrook, found my ‘aqua vite' and some corn soup at Smokey and Bunty.

What a night. Had not felt this free in over two years. Sat on the back of Gary and Christine's truck on the way back to the guesthouse. Felt like the Queen mother.

For the following two weeks went t to Maracas, Mount St Benedict. The Lady Young. Had coconut water around the Savannah, Patraj Roti in San Juan, went to the Breakfast Shed and of course made several trips to Smokey and Bunty. Trinidad is truly a wonderful place. This is a place where I would love to live but over the years I have felt as though the system does not wish me to be living happily in my home. This saddens me to no end. And now, as I sit here in my lonely flat in London I ponder and ask myself, ‘Will I ever find my true home?'