Learning
to Finish What I Started (Part I)
I was filled with the best of intentions and ideas. I had read blog
posts by many other writers. I had an idea about what I wanted to say. I had come up with a domain name that was
actually available. What? No one else created a blog entitled Cod Fish
Cakes? I couldn’t believe it. I jumped at the idea.
I had made my first trip to Barbados some fifteen years
earlier. I was feeling a little
nostalgic about my Barbadian(Bajan) past. Thanks to whomever created the
internet, I could recapture my roots through a blog. My grandparents had long
since passed on, but the three that I knew were still vivid in my mind. They had come to these American shores via
Ellis Island. I could talk about them. I
could share pictures of Barbados, their home of origin. I could also tell some Bajan jokes like my
aunt used to do Sundays at my grandmother’s house.
There was so much I wanted to talk about including my grandfather on
my mother’s side who left Barbados to work on the Panama Canal. I could talk about his brownstones in Harlem
and also the small church he took such pride in attending. I could talk about
his smile and how he was the only relative who ever made me laugh and bought me
popcorn in Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey. I had the best of intentions when I started
this blog.
I was even going to share some of my favorite Bajan
recipes. I learned one recipe from
my mother and one from a sister. I would
search for some of the others especially the pastry that my grandmother used to
make. I can see the coconut bread and
pone right now. Delicious.
I don’t have a lot a Bajan stories to tell because if you knew any
who were born in the early 1900s one thing is certain, they didn’t talk about
the past. Even when I pressed my mother
to tell me about her childhood, all she would say, “There’s nothing to tell,”
or “Why visit the past?”
I could also talk about the church I attended as a child. Just about everybody was from one of the
islands—especially Barbados. First
generation immigrants and a separatist Christianity can leave an indelible mark
on an individual.
So I started with what I planned to be an ongoing discussion about
one small facet of my life.
I knew I had a little talent in the area of writing, and I was going
to move forward with it. Writing endless
observation reports of teacher lessons can get quite annoying. So I planned
to branch out sort of like Peter, all excited about walking on the water,
except I was walking on the waters of the internet. I had planned to be a
little more successful than Peter.
I didn’t write an outline or anything. I just let my fingers fly. The white blank
page was filling up fast. I was
beginning to feel like I really was a writer even though I had been writing
privately for who knows how long. I was
proud of what I had produced. I had finally
written my first blog. Then I reread
what I had written to make sure I didn’t make any silly errors or omissions.
And then I took my first final blogging plunge. I pressed publish. I was a little frightened at first. I had done it. I was now out there on the high
seas of the world of the internet. I
felt a little exposed. I wondered what
would happen next.
