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Grandma Vera went home today. It was peaceful.

That’s Vera, last May, on Grand Anse Beach. We were there celebrating Jack’s first birthday.

Love you.

Tillman congratulates Barack

The newly-elected Prime Minister of Grenada, Tillman Thomas, wrote this lovely note of congratulations to Barack Obama:

The Government and the people of Grenada are extremely elated over your amazing election as the 44th President of the United States of America, and do offer you our sincere congratulations.

The fact that you are the first African-American to be elevated to this prestigious office fills us with additional pride and emotion.

Perhaps never before in the history of the United States of America has an electoral process generated such interest around the world. This might be due in large measure to your message of change and hope, of constructive engagement and of dialogue.

Surely, the solid mandate that the American people have given you, through their votes, means that their expectations are equally high.

I honestly believe that your intentions are sincere and I am confident that you would rise to the several challenges that you must confront domestically and indeed, in the wider global community. Grenada remains committed to working with you on issues of common importance.

The people of the United States of America and Grenada share a long history of friendship and cooperation and I am hopeful that during your presidency, our bilateral relations would be further strengthened. I certainly wish you a most successful term in office.

Please accept, Sir, my best wishes for your personal well-being and that of your family and for the continued prosperity of your great nation.

U.S. President George W. Bush meets with Grenada Prime Minister Tillman Thomas in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington October 8, 2008. (Reuters)

This photo is just over a month old. Something tells me that Prime Minister Thomas is going to be looking for an excuse to return to the Oval Office as soon as possible. When I saw him on the local news talking about Obama, he was the most animated I had ever seen him. He normally speaks very deliberately and slowly, not getting excited even when he’s being challenged in Parliament. But Obama had words dancing out of the Prime Minister’s mouth. To describe him as thrilled would be a profound understatement.

joys of tropical fabrics

I am what you could call an intermediate seamstress, but only if you were being kind. Both my mom and my grandmother can really sew, though, so I grew up accustomed to wandering the aisles of fabric stores. I’d run my fingers along the bolts like they were books on a library shelf, waiting until Mom or Grandma was finished.

In Grenada you can easily get fabrics you’d never ever find at Jo-Ann or Tillum’s. (Yes, I’m from Rockland County.) Day-glo hibiscus flowers, jungle toucan prints, sedated frenzies of geometric color from Africa. The African prints never include living things, so we never mistake it for something we got in Hawaii. (Thanks to my uncle the entymologist from Waipahu, we’ve also had insect fabrics. No kidding. There was so much of it Grandma made sheets.)

My mom is retired and she’s loved to sew ever since she was a campfire girl. (Or was it 4-H? She did both and I get confused, because I did none of those girl-makes-jelly-and/or-a-quilt things.) Mostly she has made clothes, robes and curtains, but she also excels at cushions. When I was about 14, she recovered a full-size sofa bed, with matching edges and everything. There were Halloween costumes, including Peter Pan (me) and a turquoise Converse sneaker (my brother). There were doll clothes, for that very brief period that I was into Barbies. There were costumes for plays, from Shakespeare to Shaw. When I was 12 and suddenly grew hips that were doorknob magnets, she was able to make me clothes that fit well without making me look like I was playing dress-up. She performs tailoring miracle on jeans with too-big waists.

The Grenadian sun literally bleaches everything it hits, so it surprises me not at all that she’s amusing herself these days by recovering all the cushions for the chairs that live on our verandah. She’s done two sets — one in yellow pleather and the other in what I like to call “toucan supreme”.

My headbands —> I love these things so much. Without them I think I’d have cut my hair boy-short by now. I’m fully aware of how loud they are, yes, but I love them still. I swear I only wear the neutral (black & white) ones when I’m back in the States. Frankly, I don’t need them in New York; the weather is different. The headbands really keep the sun from both my hair and my face. One of them was even specially made for the election… It’s supposed to be yellow, though I realize now it truly is orange.

I had a lot of fun setting up those photos. I made like I was making the top of an apple pie. (For more photos of all the projects discussed in this post - including some where I’m actually wearing the headbands, see the complete album in my photo gallery.)

This is my housekeeper in her wedding dress. Très funky. Mom made it. I picked the fabric. Cheryl requested a dashiki; I’m pretty sure the green was my idea. We had no pattern, so I googled dashiki images. There were plenty of gems, which Mom studied for a bit. She sat in front of my Macbook for an hour, and then…

Mom tells me that the dress just kind of sprang up organically from the fabric. If you’ve met her, you know she means that.

I am reminded of this passage in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible:

“Whenever a woman leaves her wide-to-the-open-world yard to work her field or saunter off on an errand, first she must make herself decent. To do this, even though she is already wearing a wraparound skirt, she will get and get another large square of cloth from the house, which she warps around her first skirt - covering her legs right down to the instep of her foot - into a long, narrow sarong, tied below her breasts. The cloths are brightly painted and worn together in jangling mixtures that ring in my ears: pink gingham with orange plaid, for example. Loose-joint breaking-point colors, and whether you find them beautiful or find them appalling, they do make the women seem more festive, and less exhausted.“

As I wrote the first draft of this post, Mom studied the batik house dress I was wearing. “Should I copy that for you? We’ve still got plenty of that black and white fabric with the silver.”

Isn’t she great?

is this racist?

I don’t think it’s meant to be, but it hits me in the gut like that. Am I oversensitive? Is this just a caricature?

random thought, pretty pictures

Someday I will leave Grenada and return to the United States, leaving behind sights like these:

I wonder: After I’m gone, will these pictures seem impossible memories? Will it eventually feel a dream that I ever lived amidst such extraordinary yet everyday beauty?

election aftermath: “man on the moon”

(Sam Flores Munk)

At 11:51 PM on Tuesday I typed the last words of my liveblog and finally stepped away from the computer. The networks had called the election. I had confirmed it on Twitter. I wasn’t celebrating yet. I was cautious.

But then the miracle happened. Mere minutes after the call, John McCain delivered his concession speech. When he said “the American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly. Barack Obama is the future,” it clicked. The election was over and we had won.

Right after McCain’s speech, MSNBC cut to this:

The moment when Keith Olbermann said “This is man on the moon” is forever burned on my memory. I had been tearing up through McCain’s speech, but with those words — This is man on the moon — the dam broke. I burst out in a sob - “I was so scared!”

YingYing looked over at me, a little alarmed. “I knew you were too calm!”

Obama’s own speech was so amazing that I’m not even going to try to write about it at length. Every word was beautiful. He looked so tired, so somber, like a victorious General. I thought that he must be so sleep-deprived, and that he’d just lost his grandmother, two days before. Two of the shortest yet longest days of his life, I’m sure. I plan to watch the sppech again soon in its entirety but I do fear doing so at this moment. My eyelids are still swollen.

On Tuesday night, the line that brought me to a new level of joyful sobbing was:

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours: “We are not enemies, but friends… though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.”

I loved it when he addressed the people who had not voted for him and said he was their President too. I loved it when he addressed the world. I was thrilled when he mentioned hard work and sacrifice.

I have never before in my life been especially proud to be an American. I went to a little hippie private school where we read Chinua Achebe in middle school and were encouraged to think of Christopher Columbus as an intruder. My speech tends to be peppered with phrases like “crass consumerism”, “economic imperialism” and “bourgeois bullshit”. This is not, however, to say that I ever have been or ever would be anti-American. There is room for dissent and discussion, and, most importantly, historical honesty, without condemnation. I can disagree with, rail against, and make fun of Americans and America and her leaders all I want. If I didn’t love my country, and if I hadn’t for most of my life seen the world in a way that led me to mourn our lost promise, I wouldn’t be so profoundly troubled by all the qualities we lack. I am 31 years old, which means that I have lived most of my adult life with George W. Bush as President. I have never before for a moment felt we had reason to truly hope.

All of that made me sad. I wanted American exceptionalism to be more than something I had read about.

The only event in my experience that matches this election in intensity and significance is September 11th, 2001. This election, of course, is slightly less shocking and good instead of bad. But beyond that there are so many similarities. The eyes of the world are on us. Everything is different now. There will forever be a line of demarcation in my personal history, before Obama and after Obama. I am drowning in the overwhelming conviction that nothing will ever be the same, that I am a part of history, a global citizen. They are such utterly distinct events, yet they are the two times I simultaneously felt hugely and viscerally connected to both other Americans AND the rest of the world.

Over the last few months, ever since the summer, I’ve spoken to an uncountable number of people who assured me that this could never happen. Most were Grenadians, but others were English, Australian, French, German and Venezuelan. NOBODY thought we could do this. Nobody.

They thought very little of John McCain, less of George W. Bush and even less of the U.S. electoral process. They said Americans were too racist. They said it was more likely somebody would kill him. They were enraged and horrified by Sarah Palin. They said Americans were a bunch of rednecks. I couldn’t believe they knew that word, and didn’t feel at all comforted when they added, “But of course not you, Maria”. I joked about pretending to be Canadian, but it wasn’t funny. It was a total buzzkill.

“Trust me,” I told the Australian. “It’s different this time, I promise. This is the real thing. He’s going to win.”

His response was something like: “That’s the trouble with you Yanks! Listen, that’s what I thought in 2004. But then you bloody idiots re-elected George Bush.” Not really much you can say to argue with that.

When I told a German couple that I was voting for Barack Obama and expected him to be the next President of the United States, they looked at me with expressions usually reserved for those with head injuries.

A Grenadian guy, about four weeks ago, said to me in a friendly, conversational manner, “It’s allyuh who went in Iraq, ent?” Well, yes, but I personally have nothing to do with that. More Grenadians that I would care to admit uttered to me nearly identical words, “Americans will never elect a black man President. Never.” During these conversations I found myself uncomfortably conscious of my white skin, which is unusual for me, even when I’m the only white person in a group of 100.

I never stopped believing. I never gave up hope. But man oh man was I worried. I was worried in a jaw-clenching, neck aching, visceral sort of way.

I never had the pleasure of arguing with a McCain supporter. All I had was people who thought Barack should win but couldn’t. They hoped he would, but they thought Americans just plain weren’t ready to elect a black President, that we were too racist - simply unprepared to elect a black man, and if by some miracle he were elected, there would be riots or worse. I secretly worried it was all true. I felt ashamed.

Caribbean Lionesse phrased it elegantly when she wrote:

“‘The United States is inherently racist’ went the meme. ‘At some point this dream has to stop.’”

“Like many, even most other people around the globe and certainly the majority of black people, I did not think that Americans were ready to elect a black president. I was convinced, as we all were, that you could not overcome your ‘original sin’ of slavery that has tainted racial relations for all of your existence.”

Jdid, a Caribbean Diaspora blogger, wrote a beautiful and brilliant post - joyously titled Mountaintops - of which the following is an excerpt.

“Obama has shattered a glass ceiling beyond most of our wildest expectations and the same way that some expect that we black folk should accept a collective shame and guilt whenever some random black man commits a crime well why shouldn’t we now embrace Barack’s victory, an achievement that gives us pride? So as I said his victory is mine and I cheer loudly and unabashedly for him.

“We have a new hero. Especially for us who are here in North America as minorities. We no longer only need look to foreign leaders or dead African kings and Pharaohs or Marcus, Martin and Malcolm to point out to our children what black people have and can achieved. We have a real live person closer to home who isn’t a rapper, who isn’t an athlete, who isn’t an entertainer who we can say has achieved the impossible, defied the odds, made it to the very top and looks like you and I. We can look at our children and point to Obama while paraphrasing his words Yes you can.”

This is a stunning and eloquent example of how much this means to everyone, how universal this victory is. (Both posts - Jdid’s and Caribbean Lionesse’s - are worth a complete read. Jdid left me in tears and Caribbean Lionesse starts out with the heart-stopping line, “America… my bad. We were wrong about you. We completely underestimated you.“)

Oh, how bittersweet it was to watch this election from afar. I was in New York for the best part of the primary season, but I flew back to Grenada in May and have been here ever since. I miss some of the little things I would have experienced had I been in the States on Tuesday. Like, I voted, where’s my Starbucks? Like, where are all the yard signs, bumper stickers, t-shirts and print newspapers? I would have loved to have attended a rally, of course. I would have jumped at the opportunity to volunteer - though I did do what little I could from so far away. I missed going over all of this with a fine-toothed comb, with other Americans, in person. A sip of the shared excitement, that’s all I wanted.

But the truth is, I got to share in the excitement anyway. My emotions are still running over. Days later and I’m still welling up with tears. I am so happy, so excited, and so damn proud of my country right now. We did it! Yes we can and YES WE DID!

My little life can now go back to (what passes for) normal. Catch up on email, find my tongue ring, check out that Montessori school for Jack, think about Christmas and fix my Macbook - which remains as yet untouched. Get back to blogging about Grenada and writing my book. Spend some much needed time in the sun. Pore over my favorite gossip blog instead of my favorite political blog. Watch House instead of the news.

But at least once a day I will remind myself, “President Obama. Wow.” The more it sinks in, the nicer it feels.

This is what I look like when I've been crying happy tears for hours. Taken with Photo Booth around 1:30 AM.

November 7th, 2008 | Tags: 9/11, caribbean, election, expat, family, global, Grenada, international, living abroad, living in Grenada, LOL, love, obama, other blogs, PHOTOS, politics, racism, world | Category: Grenada | Print This Post | Email This Post | Comments (6)

new morning in america

Wednesday morning. Still bawling like a baby. Post later.

election day liveblog

Welcome to my Election Day liveblog. Oy.

8:56 AM (Atlantic Time!): On Twitter, Election Day is already in full swing. People come out of the voting booth choked up. “Are you fired up?” A resounding yes.

8:58 AM: Dear Ann Coulter, please shut up. You make me embarrassed to be a white woman. Do you really think that Obama will institute slave reparations? Or have you just plain run out of things to say?

9:04 AM: I just don’t think these “Don’t Vote” ads are funny.

9:24 AM: Just read Afrobella’s Election Day post. She’s got a great standing-in-line-to-vote survival strategy list. So touching to hear her talk about how she wants to vote but can’t. Her hopes for Obama, America and her unborn children.

9:31 AM: I voted. Where’s my Starbucks?

9:32 AM: Michelle, Barack, Sasha and Malia are all in line to vote this very moment. Apparently Sarah Palin will arrive in Alaska right about now to vote, then get herself to Arizona by tonight. Sucks to be her.

9:37 AM: Twitter friends are reporting long lines but no other troubles so far. Voters are turning out in droves, and early! Like, arriving at 5:44 AM and being 17th in line early. I feel calm now. I woke up this morning so nervous. I still feel like I’m waiting for a loved one to come out of surgery, though.

9:38 AM: Obama just scanned his optical ballot. Hold me!

9:47 AM: What is up with New Hampshire? Can we really extrapolate a landslide for Obama from a 15-6 win?

9:49 AM: More later. Gotta go run some errands, including wrangling some wine for this evening. YingYang’s coming over to watch the results.

10:45 AM: Email from girlfriend in NYC: “Being pregnant rocks! I voted in ten minutes!!!!” Others are not so lucky…

11:00 AM: Polls are now open everywhere except Alaska and Hawaii.

11:15 AM: Anovelista just posted photos of her voting experience in Newark, NJ.

11:17 AM: According to MSNBC.com, the first polls close at 7:00 PM EST and there won’t be much to chew on until then. Let’s hope for an early call in Virginia, which will be an excellent sign for Obama, and late calls in Georgia and South Carolina, which will indicate big African-American turnout in those states and a possible national landslide for Obama. Huzzah.

11:24 AM: Tavis Smiley asks: “Anyone know the address of the 7th Day Adventist Church in Crenshaw area where the power went out and people are voting outside?” Wow.

11:28 AM: According to CNN, it’s raining so hard in Virginia people are getting so wet they’re dripping on their ballots, which then won’t go into the optical scanning machines. Poll workers are now telling people to dry off before going into vote. There are also some issues in Florida, but I’m so not going there. Sigh.

11:36 AM: Fond memories of the Fire House in Nyack, New York, where I used to accompany my parents into the voting booths. I thought the practice machines were for me!

3:33 PM: Just got back from St. George’s, aka town. Obama bumper stickers all over the place. There would be t-shirts, I’m sure, if they weren’t 1) mad scarce and 2) 80 bucks a pop.

When I got home, Jack met me at the gate. I said, “Jack, GooooBama!” Usually he throws that right back. Today, though, he said, “Nuh, ‘Bama! Cookie!” We’ll forgive him ’cause he’s two.

While I was out Mom saw the Donna Brazile clip from this morning. (find video) She says to me, “You wouldn’t believe how emotional this is for black people”. Actually, Mom, I kinda do. I was remiss, however, in not making sure you saw Charles. Also in letting you get all your news from TV. My bad.

Rasta in the St George’s market: “Black man in de White House, hahahaha. Get it??” He looked so unbelievably happy. When I told him I voted for Obama, a couple of weeks ago by mail, he said, “You Irie, Sis”.

WiseMan emailed to say that I’m wrong about the Don’t Vote videos. “i disagree with your election day blog - i love the don’t vote ad - it’s wonderful.” He’s the only person I know with a subscription to the Hollywood Reporter, so I’ll defer to him on this. I stand corrected, WiseMan.

4:41 PM: Time to cook. What should I cook?

5:16 PM: Crazy wall post from my cousin about Halloween rampage. She and some friends went out and stole a dozen or so McCain-Palin signs. This was in a very very tony suburb of Westchester, NY. The next morning my uncle looked at her like she’d gotten into Harvard. Ah, youth.

5:39 PM Email from girlfriend in Philadelphia. “so i just volunteered at the south philly obama hq and called people for a few hours. they were very well organized and had a ton of people. i really hope obama wins tonight - i think the whole thing is so freaking cool. i am going to a bar to watch election returns and will
probably cry when he wins.”

5:41 PM: Donna Brazile is awesome. Alex Castellanos seriously needs to lay off the spray tan.

5:48 PM: I am so totally grossed out by this telling people to vote on Wednesday bullshit. That ain’t sportsmanlike.

5:54 PM: Someone got to this blog by Googling “Obama going to Grenada”. (Huh?) Just starred a bunch of stuff on Twitter, but I think my brain might explode if I spend any time there tonight.

5:58 PM: Why is John McCain still campaigning today? Oh, right. He’s desperate and losing.

5:59 PM: I still haven’t started cooking. First returns in an hour or is it two? We don’t have Daylight Savings Time in Grenada, so I’m getting confused. I’m teaching the baby to thread his belt through his jeans.

6:05 PM: Jack Cafferty has just asked a very good question, How would you change how we elect our President? Hmmm, let’s see… The Electoral College is as vestigial as an appendix… We should be able to call an election whenever, like in Australia or England or Grenada… We have a kajillion ways to vote, but we should have more like two or three… And oh yeah, the campaign lasts FOREVER. I’m a poltical news junkie and even I have been wanting to impale myself for the last bunch of weeks. Should I go on?

6:09 PM: Wow, Sarah Palin went to a lot of trouble to vote today. Not quite like that couple in India, of course, but still. “Forever I’m gonna be Sarah from Alaska,” she said. Classic.

6:22 PM: Totally unoriginal thought: Starting tomorrow, no more yucky campaign commercials, yay!!

6:24 PM: Oh, Rudy, you old fraud, you.

6:38 PM: 12 minutes until the first polls close! CNN is reporting the 70 something percent of new voters went for Obama, and 60 something percent of all voters consider the economy the #1 issue. Good, good. The wait to vote in some places is 5-7 hours. Not so good. But that does mean lots and lots of people are voting… I just don’t like to think about the ones who gave up and went home. This is why I always walk with my book.

6:50 PM: Drudge appears to have called the election for Obama. “EXIT POLLS CLAIM OBAMA BIG WIN.”

6:53 PM: This is hot: Times reporter attends the Obama family victory feast in the village of Kogelo, Kenya, and brings along a live goat. It was of course the UK Times. The NYTimes is not cool like that.

7:14 PM: I have expectations for neither Indiana nor Kentucky. Trivia: Kentucky and part of Indiana do not have DST, hence the seeming earliness of their poll closings.

7:15 PM: I love cooking with sea salt.

7:52 PM: Vermont, Kentucky, Meh. Tell me something l don’t know. Indiana is very close, with Obama ahead at the moment. If he takes Indiana… None of these results are final, anyway, just the networks calling it.

7:55 PM: Virginia now has two Democratic Senators and a Governor. Nice. (Though I don’t want a filibuster-proof majority, trust me.)

8:01 PM: Food is bubbling, nearly finished. YingYang is on her way. I just poured my first glass of wine. My stomach hurts and I’m sweating. Time for a moment of peace, aka a shower.

8:11 PM: I’m a liar. And Jamie’s right, we should have rented oxygen tanks. Woo-sa.

9:51 PM: WE HAVE MSNBC. OMG. REUNITED WITH KEITH. NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON.

Normally you can’t watch MSNBC in Grenada. Tonight, Channel 10, in its infinite wisdom, is carrying it. Praise Jesus and pass the possum.

11:44 PM: MSNBC is being really cautious about calling states but not about calling the election. Wow. Pat Buchanan just said something to the effect of President Obama’s got a tought road ahead…

Rachel Maddow: Um, I think John McCain deserves some credit for his own loss…

Priceless.

11:51 PM: It’s over. Wow. Thank you, California. Wow. Wow.

obama’s grandma

Obama's grandparents during World War II.

Madelyn Dunham passed away yesterday. She was 86.

Barack Obama and Maya Soetoro-Ng released this statement:

“It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer. She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring. Our debt to her is beyond measure.

“Our family wants to thank all of those who sent flowers, cards, well-wishes, and prayers during this difficult time. It brought our grandmother and us great comfort. Our grandmother was a private woman, and we will respect her wish for a small private ceremony to be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you make a donation to any worthy organization in search of a cure for cancer.”

Barack's High School Graduation, 1979.

John and Cindy McCain released this statement:

“We offer our deepest condolences to Barack Obama and his family as they grieve the loss of their beloved grandmother. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them as they remember and celebrate the life of someone who had such a profound impact in their lives.”

It’s so profoundly sad that she didn’t live to see tomorrow. We’ve gained an election monitor in heaven, but I doubt that’s any comfort to Barack right now.

R.I.P. Toot.

UPDATE:

Earlier tonight, Obama said this:

“No matter what happens tomorrow, I’m going to feel good about how it has turned out because all of you have created this remarkable campaign. She is gone home. And she died peacefully in her sleep, with my sister at her side. And so, there is great joy as well as tears. I’m not going to talk about it too long because it is hard, a little, to talk about.

I want everybody to know though a little bit about her. Her name was Madelyn Dunham. And she was born in Kansas in a small town in 1922. Which means she lived through the Great Depression, she lived through two World Wars, she watched her husband go off to war, while she looked after her baby and worked on a bomber assembly line. When her husband came back they benefited from the G.I. Bill, they moved west and eventually ended up in Hawaii.

She was somebody who was a very humble person, a very plain-spoken person. She is one of those quiet heroes we have all across America, who are not famous, their names are not in the newspapers, but each and every day they work hard. They look after their families. They sacrifice for their children, and their grandchildren. They aren’t seeking the limelight. All they try to do is do the right thing. And in this crowd, there are a lot of quiet heroes like that, people like that, mothers and fathers and grandparents who have worked hard and sacrificed all their lives and the satisfaction that they get is in seeing their children or maybe their grandchildren or their great-grandchildren live a better life than they did. That is what America is about. That is what we are fighting for.”

Lovely.

Meanwhile, in California, the G.O.P sinks to a new low.