I was recently told that my apartment looks like a museum. That may have to do with the fact that I've been collecting seed pods, rocks, wasps nests, bones and other natural history objects for most of my life. I have butterflies, dragonflies, cicadas and other insects in frames, and numerous botanical pressings sitting behind glass. I get weird looks when I reveal that all the drapes and curtains in my home and many of the cushion covers were custom made, by me. From solid wood, I created three of four beds and headboards. I have been known to go to a hardware store with my Moleskine full of notes, drawings and measurements and annoy the attendants with details of the cuts I needed. I've walked several blocks with piles of cut lumber on my shoulders and sometimes take the subway to get them to my apartment. I could be heard drilling and sanding or blending while my living room and kitchen are transformed into carpentry, painting, sculpture, sewing, soap-making and baking studios. The people in my building and my Harlem neighborhood call me the pant lady, and justly so since I started gardening with plants that I brought from my previous home while the movers were unloading the furniture into my current apartment. That was twenty years ago. Since then I have schlepped thousands of plants from the Farmers Market in Union Square and from trips to Massachusetts to the common open space on my block and to the community garden two blocks away. I have a collection of baking tins, saws, wood shavers, books, paintings, an old blue enamel ambassador sewing machine, old cameras and tons of project supplies, some spilling out of closets.
I annoy people because they don't know what to make of me. I never seem to fit into the box that many people expect that a person who looks like me should be in, and there is this need to box me. I have been told that I have too much passion, that I am an over-achiever and that I "make other people look bad". It seems like my spirit irritates some people's demons. I blame it on my mother, my father and to some extent the environment in which I grew up. We were poor people but to our neighbors we seemed to be doing well. That was because our parents had very high standards and expected us kids to work hard and live our lives with integrity and pride. We were not boastful and we were not known for asking for help. The church had quite a bit of influence over the way we lived our lives, as well as the reserve and dignity our parents displayed. The high, less traveled road was the expected.
We built things. I watched and sometimes helped my mason-carpenter-plumber-electrician brothers attach wire to rebar, mix and pour concrete, mortar walls, nail galvanize and expand our living spaces. My brother Raymond made furniture and sewed a stuffed, dimpled mattress for my Skipper doll and another for my sister Stephanie's Barbie doll. Our baking trays bread pans were his creations as well as the square tapered concrete flower pots that displayed my mother's velvety begonias.
We ate well. Our beautiful mother could rival Martha Stuart in many ways. Our yard was always teeming with chickens, specked guinea fowls, mallards, peeking ducks (with the curled tail feathers) and geese. At one time we kept caged pheasants and rabbits and though I vaguely remember them, I still remember the smell of pigs and the banana-peel slop we fed them. Mom was the butcher, baker, candle-wax flower and dress maker. Mom was famous for her hand beef pies with its flaky crust and home-made ice-cream. As kids we spent many hours "washing'' butter for black fruit cakes. We churned ice-cream and plucked chickens. As a teen I learned to gut and cut the chickens in to pieces that would be seasoned to feed my large family. We baked bread on weekends, made wine and preserves from fruits that most Americans have never heard of. Mom crocheted doilies and knitted baby clothes; she made intricate round cushions, elaborate curtains and bed linens with frills and scallops. We worked alongside this good natured, gospel-singing woman in the garden and helped braid the long ropes of vetiver grass that she brought back from hunting trips with my father and older brothers. Mom meticulously starched and pressed my father's police uniforms, while us kids were charged with the job of polishing his shoes. As kids we absorbed all this and grew under the umbrella of our mother's devotion to God.
Dad was a tall, thin, dark and handsome man whose presence was authoritative and dignified. Like mom he was respected by all who knew him. Dad was a great whistler and birder. He kept caged song birds when I was a child and today sits with his binoculars looking at and for birds that frequent our neighborhood of Rio Claro, Trinidad. He was self taught and always educating himself through extensive reading. He had and still has the eyes of a hawk and misses nothing. In a country where broken English is widely spoken, he insisted that his kids spoke proper English and would often have us repeat sentences or replay scenarios to correct improper vocabulary. Dad believed in elbow grease. Dishes, sinks, surfaces, clothes, shoes, had to be spanking clean. Even old and dented pots and pans had to be scrubbed until were shiny.
As a teen I dyed fabric and made clothes most of my clothes. I could cut patterns for flared, a-line a-line and pleated skirts. I loved loose skirts with pockets. I favored the color green and choose army-green cotton fabric for skirts and pants. When I turned twenty, I created the wardrobe for my first real job, as a primary school teacher. It is no wonder that my sister made her own gown for her wedding in Glasgow. It is no surprise that I find it necessary to make things or prefer to buy second-hand, good quality clothes and other items rather than consume or surround myself with those poorly made/designed.
As I age I find that I am increasingly like my mother. Like her devotion to the Church, I am devoted to a life in gardens. Maybe it it because I find peace and perhaps God too by connecting to the land. It may be that I connect to my mother and to all my ancestors while working with plants and in soil. Here in New York, with no land to call my own, I garden anyway and anywhere I can. I make things. I paint. I bake from scratch and enjoy ingredients that I can grow myself, in a tiny community garden spot, while living in a forth floor apartment. I was born without privilege but into the care of resilient people who knew how to make a good life. I am resourceful and make the best of what gifts I've been given. I know who I am. My mom and dad taught me well.
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