Oh to be there . . . .
Snow and lots of it. But a postcard falling out of an old book and back to a sunnier world.
From that time in Monserrat, it must be. A memory rising up. Father buying postcards from the duty-free shop at the airport and using them for bookmarks. The plane leaving the runway after they got the chickens to move. Running up, down and sideways they were. Funny. No runway in Canada like that but the West Indies filled with them.
A free-form time it was and that very much. Villa rented for a month. Like summer vacation, it was, and with the same timeless quality. Breakfast on the veranda. Afternoons on the beach but mornings downtown. What they called downtown, anyway. Nothing like Toronto but Mother insisting on dresses and no shorts.
Three blocks but the M&C store in the middle. Things from every country anyone’s grandparents ever lived. Lamb from Australia, beer from Copenhagen and fireworks to shoot off in the front yard every night from all over the place. A geography lesson and a treat all in one.
But something to remember . . . . flower shops filled with every tropical flower ever seen and a huge bougainvillea draped over the top . . . . .sand for snow and coconut palms with tin wrapped round against the rats instead of Christmas tinsel and a tropical sun for the top instead of an angel . .. . perhaps next year . . . . perhaps never but that no . . . .better to think it’ll be next year . . . .the other too much to bear.
