The view from up country in Jamaica where I am from. — **The view from up country in Saint Ann, Jamaica, where I am from.**

Life Lessons Learned

I have shared my childhood stories on my life lessons learned from age 6 to 13, growing up in Saint Ann, Jamaica.

The process was a spiritual-awakening-time-travel to the past, present, and future.

And after coming out the other end, I can say I feel well rested and free.

I cried more tears than I have cried in years, but I also smiled and laughed as well.

I cried for my friends who died after Hurricane Gilbert came. I cried for Browny and her puppies, and Pluto who I missed so much after leaving.

I thought about the privilege of being able to enjoy our days at the river and summers in May Pen with my cousins. Time spent sitting in the tangerine tree with my brothers and having the bestest friends Norane, Solomie, Andrea, and Omar.

And for Mum, Dad, and Mr Ferdie’s wise words.

I felt happy to have had so many woodland adventures with my trusty slingshot without being bitten by snakes, falling into sinkholes or getting lost. Except for that one time when I found myself standing on cold concrete raised off the ground.

Then I saw more and more around me, overgrown with plants but definitely rectangle shaped. I looked down and sure enough, I was in a graveyard. Like the Keanu Reeves slow-mo scene from the Matrix movies, I ran like the wind out of there in my favourite 1960s-inspired sleeveless pale green dress.

Graveyards, no.

Spiritual Jamaican truthsayer, yes.

We were lucky that our dad knew his herbal medicine and I’m thankful for the lots and lots of ganja used to save our lives on many occasions. And you would be right, it is running through my veins, my bones, my soul.

I smiled when I remembered our little blue house on the hill. Long since gone, but one day it will be rebuilt as a stone house, with a few tree houses in the woodland canopy looking out at the farmers’ fields.

A zinc-roofed shop at the front selling tangerines, CheeseTrix, bun and cheese, D&G sodas, and lots and lots of my dad’s life medicine. And home-cooked meals made with vegetables from our kitchen garden and bread from a van, we will name Grandad’s in memory of grandad who moved to England during the Windrush era and was a baker.

All taking in our 360-degree view of tropical paradise, heaven.

I might even check out the caves at the back, now I know that’s a thing, invites all around.

I cried for my brief time in America and the sadness I felt while living there. After spending so much of my life outside in Jamaica, it was a shock to the system when I moved abroad finding myself spending so much time indoors watching television and being bored.

Visiting a supermarket and seeing so much choice, I went off food for weeks until I discovered smoky barbecue sauce, coleslaw, potato salad, Doritos, pancakes, maple syrup, Pop-Tarts, waffles, three-flavoured ice-cream tubs, Oreos, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, coconut-iced donuts, and grape soda.

I laughed at all the jokes and games I remembered us kids played in each other’s yard, on the hot country road, and at school. The many cricket matches with my brothers and friends at the local Catholic Church, after lunch on Sundays.

And idle walks home from the cooling river.

I also remembered our little menagerie of chickens, cats, pigs, lizards, bats, mosquitoes, ants’ nests, creepy crawlies, and dad’s trusted donkey who used to walk home from the field miles away on his own with the produce for dinner.

I smiled too at the memory of my pet chicken Helen and Piggy-wiggy-woo, whose ears I used to spend time rubbing under the avocado tree, and how I learned the hardest lesson of all, never befriend the family’s food.

I even had a giggle when I thought about our family savings account, the battered old brown suitcase on top of the wardrobe in my parents’ bedroom. Whenever we had to go to the shop to buy staples like flour, rice, or other bits, mum would say “Take some money from the top!” and off we would trot.

And I felt nothing but love again for the community cart, still there I’m sure with new bits of wood and tyre added.

I would highly recommend the process to everyone; thinking about your life lessons learned and writing about them in your inner voice.

The words will fall out and will not read well at first, but if you keep going over and over it each day, you will get to the point where you are no longer burdened by the past.

Instead, you will realise your purpose in life.

Time, to create our new futures.

We are in a knowledge-sharing evolution, creating a new world.

Best wishes,

Kenisha (her)

Sherry-Ann Collins

Sherry (her / us)

Sherry Collins

Jamaican Freedom Fighter

Fighting for the creative freedom of the Jamaican peopledem.™

Watch on Pitch TV.