My path in 2019 traversed some of the highest peaks and lowest valleys I’ve experienced to date. From rock bottom, I knew I was exactly where I was meant to be along my journey. I carried that feeling with me all year. A year of action. Now more than ever, I’m where I am meant to be. Getting my feet wet in the Caribbean for the first time. Dominica has answered my call: my First Look. Beginning a great year of creation--discipline.
Arnold—( “Anu”), my host on Dominica taught me the saying, “You can’t blame the contradiction.” Adversity sharpens us; we cannot blame our hardships on the obstacles meant to make us strong. My first day on the island was spent like a local, managing my way through Roseau, the capital: grocery shopping, tagging along with Anu as he fixed his car battery and his cousin’s moped tire. Leaving town, we stopped in the bush to reason with the Rasta Mon, to listen to his peace. Everyone loves a writer, the idea that their story may be told and heard one day. A lesson I learned from Jimmy Buffett’s A Pirate Looks at Fifty, when travelling abroad he mentioned that he was shooting a movie and the locals would show him places that they may not broadcast to everyone, hoping to make the movie.
Anu is a local producer who sees himself and his house, his space, as a hub for local and international artists to find themselves. He dreams of a time when artists from Dominica are not looked over. He believes there is so much raw, undiscovered talent all throughout the Caribbean. Anu agreed to put me in touch with the island historians, the Kalinago people—native Carib tribe of Dominica, and other people whose stories will color my novel. Meanwhile I rub elbows with some of the nation’s top musicians and oldest Rastas, enjoying the fruit of the garden here.
The landscape is great, but the trip is for the people.
“I irie broda.” –I’m good, family.
Guidance, Blessings
Capt. BZ