The market is abuzz with the sound of deferred dreams. “Come get your salt-fish, cherry, raisin, chocolate cassava, vinni, vinni, vinni pour cassav-la mounmaye-la!”
A busty woman calls out. Her head is wrapped in bright yellow kente cloth, on which she balances a white aluminum basin with cassava bread. Her skin glows a rich umber reminiscent of the Sudanese people, lines of hardship furrow her face and her dress is torn.
When did her dreams go out of reach?I clutch my mother’s arm trying to avert my eyes from the woman – staring is my Achilles’ heel. Your dream is proof of what God wants you to accomplish Star-my-love, proof that the seed is already there. My mother drummed these words into my psyche ever since I learned to tie my shoe laces. What would Star do if she couldn’t run? If she couldn’t savour the joy of snatching all those medals? Today was the big sports meet and she was filled with anticipation.A few feet away a freckled woman calls out to passers-by to purchase roasted corn. The aroma beckons.
“Ma, look there’s a moko jumbie.’ Star points to the group of dancers dressed in traditional madras, flanked by the tallest stilt walkers she has ever seen. The sound of drums and shack shacks impregnate the air. A Christmas tune begins. The air becomes lighter.
We meander past heaps of pink dragon fruit, breadfruit and avocados in search of my Rastafarian Uncle, Isley. It is hard to miss his lanky stature dressed in traditional dashiki decorated by a plethora of the ever-present goji bead necklaces.
“Ah, welcome Empress, I was wondering if you were still coming. And this must be my wonderful niece, Star. How tall are you now, princess? ”
The question is said more as a statement, so I smile with all my teeth and gums too since my mother warned me to be nice. The smile hurts my already high cheekbones.
“Do you have it?” my mother asks eagerly.
“Yes, of course.”
He rummages beneath the layers of his agbada and unearths a small velvet sack. A flick of the wrist, and the black cords give way to a mystical collection of stones. They are captivating colours of greens, reds and blues.
“This is a collection of African Bloodstone, Amethyst and Tiger’s Eye. He picks a few out and hands them to my mother. This will keep her grounded and pull in positive energy, love and compassion.”
My mother nudges me.
“Thank you, Uncle Isley, I really appreciate it.”
“Thank you,” my mother smiles, a brilliant smile that makes her eyes sparkle. Not the curdled smile she gives to our nosy neighbour who has never paid electricity because of a faulty LUCELEC meter.
“She is a runner, Uncle Isley, we want her to be the best that she can be.”
“Ah, like Usain Bolt?”
“Faster!” My mother and I chorus.
“Empress, she will do well, let her keep those stones close to her at all times even when she sleeps.”
“Hear that Star, always keep the stones close to your person.”
“Yes, Ma I heard.”
“Thank you, I want her to be better than me, I was supposed to be a nurse you know…but…” my mother’s voice trails as she cups the bag of beads together with both hands.
“Yes, I remember, when you started that first year. But Jah knows best, Empress, trust Him.”
I pivot to focus on the contents of the tray. Exquisitely-crafted glass beads catch my eye. Some are as small as papaya seeds and others as big as gri gri. The patterns are an array of either zig zags, circles or continuous dots that evoke the solemnity of stories from faraway lands.
“Do you have anything for a cough, every now and then, Isaiah, I mean your brother, gets this nasty cough.”
“Yes, my sistren. You should try this herbal tea to cleanse and get rid of excess mucus …when was the last time he purged?”
My mother shrugged.
“Here take this.” He hands my mother three small, clear bags with a concoction of dried leaves. Prepare some hot tea with this every morning for seven days.
“Do you like those beads, Princess? These are made for royals you can tell because they don’t rattle.”
He reaches for a set of purple and white tamarind-sized beads and hands them to me. The colour accentuates the dark pigment in my skin.
“This is an anklet, also for spiritual protection.”
I chuckle at that and extend my palm excited to receive the gift. Fashionable. I instinctively rub the beads between my thumb and forefinger. Spiritual or not it is a surprisingly soothing sensation.
Minutes later, we make our way out of the bowels of the market. The Kente woman has found a group of tourists who ravish nearly half of the cassavas. They are wearing either blue or pink “Made in Canada” T-shirts. For the first time, I notice a boy with fiery-red hair deathly-clutching the woman’s skirts. He seems no more than eight years old – three years my junior. He tugs at a small bundle of miniature straw brooms secured together with a braided thatch rope. The price tag reads EC $5.00. His eyes are bright, iridescent pools of innocence. Where will his ambitions lie? Do his roots run deep enough to truly nurture his dreams? Looking back now, I realise how lucky I was.
My mother takes five dollars from her wallet and purchases a small broom from the boy. He jumps into gear and eagerly holds out his hands to receive the money.
“These are good to dust the tops of shelves and in between the furniture,” my mother explains, flicking the bristles of the mini-broom and admiring its artistry.
“Mommy, what is the difference between people who achieve their dreams and those who don’t?” I ask on the bumpy ride to my school’s sports meet.
“Well my Star-apple.”
I love when my mother uses derivatives of my name.
“It all comes down to will power. Some people set goals and work tirelessly to achieve them. Others come up against stumbling blocks and simply give up.”
I ponder on my mother’s words for the entire bus ride, letting their meaning soak into the layers of my subconscious. The hills are peppered with brightly painted concrete homes. The landscape rolls into the edge of the sea, the source of life for so many islanders. We pass the water’s edge, and a Magnificent Frigate glides effortlessly through the currents. Seconds later, it snatches a flying fish mid-air.
“Driver, yuh see da potholes! As big as the Sulphur Springs — how you missin’ dem?” a fellow passenger bellows from the back of the fourteen-seater transit.
“Ask yuh government to fix da roads my girl,” the driver shoots back in his defense.
“It’s only because there’s always a new Government in town,” whispers a grey-haired woman sitting next to Star. “Nothing can ever get finished.”
A few other passengers heckle the driver. I grip the handle and watch the hills blur past the window, imagining what it would be like to soar over them as easily as the Frigate gliding along the shoreline. Just like running, I think, keeping your focus despite the obstacles. It’s a mantra I cling to, as if it could carry me through the race I’ve been waiting for, the one that could prove I’m ready. We enter another crater but this time I’m not quick enough to grab the handlebar and the side of my head collides with metal. I wonder if I’ll get a concussion. Seconds later, I see our bus stop and relief floods my system.
***
By the time we reach the sports field, I’m ready to put my speed to the test. I look down at my shoes—hand-me-down Champions that sag to the left like a stroke victim. But they’ll have to do. The race official’s call snaps me back to the moment. I was still able to run in a straight line so I must not have developed a concussion. Running around the bend however did prove somewhat difficult. The sports field is an emerald carpet bustling with fifty-something tweens.
“Let’s go Star! That’s my girl!” I could hear my dad’s rich, deep voice booming from the sidelines, filling me with a rush of energy and pride. For two years now my father had spearheaded the mission to secure a scholarship at a sports school in Jamaica. And for two years they had come back with one issue or another. Get her time up and will consider it for next year. There’s no space, apply ahead of time next year.
“You got this my pumpkin!”
There was nothing I could do wrong in my father’s eyes. In my earlier days before I turned pro at nine-years-old I found myself languishing in the ranks of bronze and silver. When my dad showed up to my next race, he screamed so loud that I had no choice but to glide through the wind like an eagle. Shoes or no shoes.
Today’s race was slightly different. My time has finally improved. We leave the field floating on a familiar high.
The scholarship letter arrives on the rainiest day in December. We had never experienced heat like this before and so no one was surprised the day the heavens opened, destroying all the banana plantations in the valley. The Minister for Agriculture announced that all farmers would get a 10% discount on rhizomes and other seedlings to help restore the lost crops. My father said it was a load of pure bull since this happened every year, but no planning was done to prevent it.
My mother was standing in the middle of the kitchen when she read the contents of the letter to us. “Congratulations. You are a recipient of the St. Augustine’s Sports Academy Baxter scholarship 2012-2015.”
But it was also the same day my father caught a fever that skyrocketed to 104 degrees. Dad was lying on the couch on December 13th traditionally when we held our festival of lights. The cough had come back, this time stronger.
“Star, could you bring me a basin of cold water? Let me freshen up the rag on Dad’s forehead.”
My three younger siblings were busy playing in the sitting room. Something about red lights and green lights.
I’m not sure why my father kept refusing to go to the hospital. But even then he must have thought that a huge medical bill would hinder the progress we were trying to make. That night, Uncle Isley came and werushed him to the hospital. Grey clouds furrowed above. My father sat up in bed coughing violently. He reached for a Kleenex and coughed into it pulling back his hand to reveal a crimson stain on the stark white paper.
The doctor came to say that my father’s lungs were failing. After hours of wheezing and choking that night he finally fell asleep at about 10 p.m. We were relieved that sleep had claimed him and that he wasn’t in pain. But my father never woke up again. Light pattering sound of nurses’ rubber soles entered the room and left quickly when our screams shattered the once peaceful air. It was all we could do to try to ease the pressure in our hearts. Through my father’s hospital window I could just make out a canoe, or what was left of it, as the current slammed it against the jagged rocks.
***
It wasn’t until I had moved on to University that I learnt that my chances of becoming an Olympic champion were only 3%. Somewhat like the chances of becoming a movie star. Nobody knew. Not my family. Not even my coach. Perhaps, they – lost in the euphoria of perpetual summers catching flying fish or foraging on fruit farms – had simply paid no attention to the odds. I had sailed through my time at St. Augustine’s Sports Academy capturing medal after medal. But university proved different.
“Star, it’s time to warm up,” coach Israel said.
“But coach, didn’t you say we were going to go through the meal plan today?”
“I changed my mind.”
“Oh.”
“We need to go through technique.”
Star gazed across the field taking in the view of the students walking across campus. Some were holding hands, while others laughed and chatted, framed by the brilliant fall colours. Rusty reds. Bold yellows. Vibrant greens. And the occasional dejected brown leaves, eager to caress the ground. Star bent to tie her bright orange thunderbolt running shoes. Arguing with her coach was out of the question.
When they met three years ago at the University of Texas he had sat her down and explained that it was easier to look at races as a metaphor for life. There was so much work that needed to be done day in and day out in preparation for the race, then there was the technique that needed to be executed during the races and then there was the psycho-analysis and ultimate learning after the race. In essence, the formula. Then he turned to face her, he looked into the depth of her almond-shaped eyes as shards of light crisscrossed against the bleachers and said:
“The decision is yours. Whether you want to achieve excellence or not. The decision will always be yours. I am only the guide.”
It was after a big collegiate race that Star understood what coach really meant by these words. That the decision was hers. She had just run a race and came fifth. What part of her had not lived up to the formula? For weeks she was plagued with persistent thoughts that demanded attention. What if this? What if that? Maybe this is the case? The “maybes” spiraled in a loop, festering negativity that threatened to overshadow what should be a gateway to success.
“What happened out there?”
“I don’t know. I got out of the blocks really strong and then, I don’t know what happened. I could feel and hear everything, the wind, the crowd, the ticking of the automatic timer. My heartbeat. I heard it all. I felt it all. Then doubt crept in and I thought “what if I fall, what if the wind holds me back… what if my injury resurfaces.”
“You know those thoughts are just dead weight right? We’ve been there before, you can’t let your mind, your biggest asset turn against you just when it matters the most!”
“I’m sorry, coach.”
“You don’t need to apologise to me. Apologise to yourself, your fans, your family, your country. All of whom believe in you.” With that he took her opened palm and placed a small Saint Lucian flag pin in the centre of her hand. The black, yellow and white of the simple triangle floating in a sea of cerulean stare back at me. He took each finger one-by-one and closed her trembling hand over the pin.
“Do it for your country.”
That night Star cried to release years of pent up sorrow. She cried for her father. She cried for her mom, working night shifts at the hotel. She cried for her younger siblings who were robbed of the love of a father. They would never know his loud, smacking cheek kisses or his tendency to discipline with a full-body swing over his head. How your head spun, the blood rushing to your face, as you begged forgiveness, laughing and gasping all at once.
What had her counsellor, Gertrude, said?
Your thoughts are not you, and neither are they necessarily right.
Observe your thoughts from outside yourself, then review and decide which to keep and which to discard.
But there on the track, there was no time to mull over each thought as it came. No time to sift good peas from bad peas. The thoughts entered and when they did – they ravaged through her psyche like a category five hurricane. And suddenly, you were simply an actor in the movie of your own life!
About two hours into the pity party, I received a call from the Head of Sports Marketing at Puma. Mr. Holding excitedly announced that they want to sponsor me. I am so ecstatic that I am speechless for all of thirty seconds. The man on the other lines is almost ready to hang up before my voice, a lot raspier from crying, returns.
“Yes, yes, I would love to,” I say and before the man has the time to finish explaining to me what happens next I am already calling my mom. Before the end of the week, I have five brand new Puma running shoes delivered to my apartment. The laces are all cerulean.
The Glasgow, NCAA Outdoor Championships are here! I am super confident about the NCAA Outdoor Championships. The way an eagle is super confident about a prey its eyes have honed on. Coach Israel and I have worked so hard on my start that at least two nights a week, whenever I sleep long enough to go into REM, I dream that my feet are somehow stuck to the blocks. But a few moments later the image of my father appears and I am free to float above the clouds. And somehow the Twin Peaks of my country are never too far in the distance.
For weeks I have lived on a diet of eggs, chicken, fish and fruit smoothies with whey protein. Just enough to build lean muscle and increase my stamina. We maximized my endurance by occasionally running uphill. Puma merchandise continues to flood my closet. Forever faster.
Paris Olympic Games here I come! My heart pummeled through my chest. This was it. Every practice, every sacrifice has led to this moment. There is one image that makes my heart beat faster. My last glimpse on Facebook is a picture of a sea of Saint Lucian flags waving from left to right in front of a massive outdoor screen in the Castries square. The air is electric.
I begin my warmups and stretches, but not before I enter the impenetrable zone. Headphones, check. Soca music, check. Dad’s lucky gold necklace, check. A few feet away, the renowned Caria Hudson flicks her braids towards me and makes the sign of the cross. Although I notice the subtle attempt at intimidation, Soca genius, Teddyson John’s, Up and Up demands my attention. After years of carrying Uncle Isley’s Bloodstone, negative energy washes over me effortlessly. In that moment it is the music. Nothing else. Rhythm. Drums. Velvety chords.
In the stands, I do not notice when my Olympic team coach for Saint Lucia gives me two thumbs up and mouths You got this! Anything past my three feet of personal space is a blur.
The music ends and in the five seconds between songs, I take a moment to recap the biggest wins in my life. Central American Caribbean Youth U15 championship 2015, 2017 Commonwealth Youth Games, 2018 Youth Olympic Games, Bowerman’s Award 2023. The time is now.
Within one hour, the 100 meter race is called. I emerge from the call box and the love from a nation I know is glued to their screens floats on an invisible current to warm my heart and fuel my spirit.
The athletes take their place. I attach myself to the blocks. Get set… Firm fingers caress the purple tarmac. I bow my head and wait for the sound that will change my life forever…
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