Welcome to the world of Ficiton.
People want the nitty gritty. The down and dirty about how people interact with others and with themselves. They want to see people like themselves. They want to hate the villian and be shocked the person they thought was the villian wasn’t. They want characters to be redeemed and the hero’s to act heroically.

It’s why books and movies thrive we are on a never ending quest to see all the things we think we notce in our own lives and don’t dare mention, thrown onto the page or screen.

People want to be sucked into a world where it is safe to love and to hate. A place where they can feel without the fear of discovery. Without the consequences fo the ordinary world.

It’s why I love “The Last of The Mohicans” I can follow Hawkeye and Cora and not feel the sting of an arrow or the disapproval of her father. But I can empathize and when I put down the book it’s all over it wasn’t me. But for a while I was in another world, another time. Seeing their world their relationships between themselves and others.

A good story sparks curiosity, a good story is reread time and time again. It reaches in and pulls us out of ourselves.

Chudney

This year we decided to dot hem at home/ online. I’m finally done. (translates running around fist pumping as I stare at my phone where I receoved my text that the IRS accepted our filing) Woo Hoo! We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled program next week or may be I’ll post a pic tonight.

Wish you the best!
PS don’t forget to get your taxes done.
Chudney

I was watching Dancing with the stars the other night and their theme was “The most memorable year of your life.”

It got me to thinking about my most memorable years.

• 1982- my baby brother (now 6ft tall, soon to be thirty and married with kids) was born
• I have a vivid memory of buying my mother wrigleys chewing gum at the hospital gift shop and watching him bawling at the top of his lungs through the nursery glass.
• 1986- Traveling with my dad and brother to Canada
• My mom was there because of her breast cancer. We stopped in Barbados and stayed with my uncle Earl and his family over night. The first time I remember meeting my cousin Tami.
• 1989-Despite everyone telling me I was too young I passed the common entrance exam. Which much to my father’s chagrin meant he had to take me to Disney
• 1990 I entered my Alma Mater St.Vincent Girls High School
• I followed in the footsteps of my Aunt Patsy, my mother and several cousins.
• 1992-Had my first and only boy, girl party.
• My mother couldn’t handle it and I couldn’t handle my mother freaking out.

There are many more but I figure I’ll leave you with the early years. What was your most memorable year/years?

These words have been the buzzwords of my life over the past few weeks with recent events in the next town over (Sanford) and in my personal life.

A person’s perceptions warp their reality.  A persons perception can warp your reality even when you don’t care for another’s perception. In other words, sometimes you end up playing to that perception even when you don’t want to. Perception changes how a human being reacts to certain stimuli. It colours their behavior in ways they don’t even recognize. In ways they don’t analyze, until something makes them sit up and take notice.

The simple act of picking up a basket when entering a store or taking nothing in with you that might be mistaken as the stores property is in grained before we’re old enough to walk. The fact that as a woman I know there are certain places I don’t go to at certain times or at all. Or as a brown skinned woman I know to be cautious in certain areas because that skin colour might just be offensive to some.

I’m raising two children, both girls, One Brown like me and One Pale like her Father. Both with a brown mother coming from a Caribbean background. Which means I’m many things including black. I teach my girls to be colour blind, that race is not an issue for us.

Yet we live in a world where the perception is that we as a country has risen above racism but the reality is that while we’re working very hard at it, some of us at least there are others who haven’t. Much to the shock and dismay of the rest of us.

A word of warning Racism goes both ways and comes from all sides. I see it when people look at my girls and realize that they’re sisters. One brown, One White at least that’s what it seems on the outside. Then they determine they must be adopted, or whatever else comes to mind.

Do I let this get to me? Do I pay attention to it? No because I’m raising my girls to never let anyone’s negativity hold them back. Why am I bringing it up? Because I had one of those perception shaking reality changing moments as we all did. It wasn’t a recent thing.

No it happened when my six year old was one. I walked into a department store and while I stood in line to pay for some shoes the woman (Caucasian) in front of me whose child happened to be of east Indian descent and looked to be about the same age  as my daughter turned to me and said.

“Oh you could have gotten my kid and I could have gotten her.”

Puzzled because I had been minding my own business I took a look at her and realized that she assumed the Alexandra was adopted. (Her reality colouring her perception of things.)

So I smiled politely and said. “That would be a bit hard since I gave birth to her.”

She twittered and looked about. Eventually she paid for her item and left. I’ve never given much thought to incident, until a cousin of mine who lives in Europe called me up to ask about the “Trayvon incident.” We got into a discussion about a societies perception of itself and the fact that occasionally something with happen to force the reality to displace the perception.

Which led into a discussion on what people in general do subconsciously to protect themselves, whether it be attempting to make themselves feel safe and appear unthreatening by pulling up a hoodie. Or as she has discovered, she herself makes sure to take up a basket when entering a store, or doesn’t carry anything but her purse into a store so that nothing she brings in can be considered stolen merchandise.

Why does she do these thing? She does them because she was once searched without cause in a store that she frequented. Why? Because she, to the minds of the people running the store would be the type of person who would steal. It didn’t matter that she is a young professional married to another young professional, who had no need to steal because she had the money to purchase the materials in her grocery bag or that she’d just paid for them.

She felt violated and as such, her subconscious created a way for her to cope. A way for her to survive. These coping skills or many like them are being passed from generation to generation in the hopes that children of those who have felt violated or powerless don’t have to feel that way ever again. So there you have it.

Reality colours perception and perception sometimes hides the reality, but the reality will never stay hidden.

Chudney