... in the black and white posed shot was a boy, of around five, and his doe eyed mother ... looking at the image it strikes me that both of them have so much life ahead of them ... such is the benefit of hindsight ... the Jamaica this woman had returned to serve after post-graduate study abroad was embracing independence and had turned a page in the annals of its history as a jewel of the colonial British Empire ... for that boy it was the early stages of a journey through changing times ... a journey that now features his blogging in this space, almost half a century later, in honor of the woman who raised him ...
... her face looks for all it's worth like Dorothy Dandridge, the American actress whose own browning black beauty represented a standard of the day ... inevitably portrayed by Halle ... our Miss Ivy was often mistaken for the screen idol around the Columbia University campus in 50's New York ... these were Pete Seeger times, Stokely Carmichael, Belafonte, Lena Horne and optimism ...
... back home, mento was giving way to ska, Oxford english was yielding to more dynamic patois and urban areas developed new ways to project their kinetic energies ... Kingston needed teachers, and with both parents in that profession it was unsurprising that this mother-of-two also taught ... a teacher of teachers at Mico College (est.1835), the oldest teacher-training institution in the Western Hemisphere ...
... Ivy-league you might say ...
... church and hospital committees, volunteer endeavours, raising two boys in a rapidly growing society .... wife, mother, daughter, sister, nation-builder ... complete the picture of selfless service to God, kin and country ...
... there are indelible memories of the heady Michael Manley era which transformed the minds of the nation before and after the landmark 1972 election ... the political maelstrom was at once exciting and promising as it was foreboding and fractious, resulting in new realities of greater self-awareness, devalued currency and passionate pride in the ever-expanding global footprint some now call Brand Jamaica ... warts and all ... the memories of the same period for Miss Ivy carry adjectives more suited to her perspective which by this point had become more focussed on futures for her sons than collective infrastructures ...
... by the time the seventies had blown by the photos were boasting color, bigger hair and our maturing-yet-ageless protagonists were on the move ... part of the destiny of a small place is to look beyond its borders and spread out ... this is not a phenomenon that can be linked solely to political weather or a single generation ... the common binding factor has to be a search for betterment, an umbrella phrase that encompasses all reasons for emigration ... and like her mother before her, another Miss Ivy, the Dominion of Canada, warts and all, was chosen as a new frontier with new opportunities ...
... how you approach challenges is part of the legacy you leave ... Ivy senior was as unflappable as the Dalai Lama and just as jovial ... while Ivy junior proved to be resilient, resourceful and intrepid enough to start anew as an overqualified clerical temp en-route to an almost year-long Swiss-appointed mental health consultancy in Namibia at the behest of the United Nations ...
... the countdown to the millenium was speeding up and no-one knew definitively what the year 2000 would look like ... Ivy senior went to meet her maker before the big party and the rest of us will forever be trying to match her spirit and sense of humor ... she herself, as a music fan and popular-culture afficionado, would have gotten a huge kick out of pre-eminent dancehall personality Rodney Price a.k.a. Bounty Killer, Warlord or ... Miss Ivy Last Son ... and his mother, you guessed it ... Miss Ivy ...
... for my mother the millennium brought a well earned retirement within which all her talents from classroom and workplace still work in tandem with her spiritual strength in service of community and her sons and their children ...
... in retrospect, this is the chat that would probably have spewed forth if I met Halle and she had seemed remotely interested ... the description of the matriarchy that nurtured me ... the tale of the Dandridge look-alike and her mother ... the men with whom they made homes ... the life stories that informed rock-solid faith, strength to raise families while aging gracefully and productively ... Halle might have called for security ...
... I can hear the mama-mantra ... "the Lord works in mysterious ways my son" ... perhaps it's a good thing I never met Halle Berry then, falling as I do, somewhere on the spectrum between her two ex-husbands in appearance ... our characters never crossed paths in the movie, I didn't even go to the wrap party when filming was over ... but if I meet her now, preferably on another project, I'd still show her the old photo and for added inspiration, update it with an image of a real superhero who continues to live the full life ...
Great post
ReplyDeletePeter, what an incredibly beautiful blog.(is that what you call this?)Please forgive me! Such beautiful memories of your Miss Ivy. Reminds me of how I feel about my Mom!I pray life will give me more time to read. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful post about your mom! You wrote in some way, as your soul said... and hands just wrote, (this way perceived myself). All my admiration and respect for both!
ReplyDelete