Jamaica... how do i love thee? yes it's no secret about my love of this island... the music, the culture, the food, the people, it's a strange and wonderful place... it's terrain is so rugged that every time i'm there it both stuns and is stunning... towns and roads hacked out of a tropical jungle so thick it seems like a lush green carpet covering everything in sight.... this was the third trip and this time it was Negril, on the west coast of the island, where Lee Scratch Perry had lived before his death, to get there one flies into Montego Bay and takes a bus, taxi, etc some 80 kilometers west to Negril...
It starts with navigating the traffic in one of the island's largest cities, Montego Bay, the party town filled with tourists... traffic congested streets, the kids all leaving school in their uniforms, the vendors walking through traffic selling fresh fruit, nuts, drinks and of course, ganja... but we'll get to the ganja because as we know it's an important part of the story... i think what is so striking to us Yanks, used to wide streets and multi-laned highways, is how close everything is on the road, bumper to bumper traffic creeping along slim lanes, motorcycles weaving in and out of cars, it's a world unto it's own... and even in the city the plants are everywhere, creeping over walls, forming canopies in certain spots dense enough to block out the Caribbean sun...
As we wound our way out of the city and into the countryside it was there that this thought struck, partly because as we drove along i was looking into those lush green hills and mountains and it reminded me of the last time i was here, shortly after my father's death, taking a trip to Nine Mile alone and being in those gorgeous green hills on the way to see Bob's final resting place... as we drove i realized that trip to Nine Mile was only made possible by my father, the BW surely wouldn't have signed off on it had my dad still been alive and if she had it would have been a point of contention for the rest of the trip, the fact he was gone had granted me a bit of empathy plus the fact her father and sister where on the previous trip so it wouldn't be just her and the boyos all day, something that in truth she probably couldn't handle... though i'm sure she'd claim otherwise.
The trip to Nine Mile, i understand now, was something of a pilgrimage to me.. the Muslims have Mecca, the Christians have i don't know how many places (Turin, Lourdes, a hundred others), and the stoned white dude who is slowly crafting out his own philosophy has a trip to Nine Mile. Maybe now i understand what all those other pilgrims feel as they make that trek, thinking about the ones they love, thinking about the journey, riding that bus through the hills of central Jamaica was like a cleansing, a way to relieve the sadness of my father's passing, an event i knew was coming and that i had handled with as much aplomb as possible but something that was still there, still fresh, and as i made my way through the hills i smiled as i looked out the window, the bus slowly making it's way up the winding roads, the shacks and houses that dotted the way, how i thought how drastically different the lives of those people were from mine, from my father's...
Looking back now i understand it was the trip of a lifetime... as i checked the map to see how far it was from Negril, any hope of making that trip again swiftly dissipated, it would definitely be an all day affair with my most likely not getting back until after dark, the BW would not be cool with me leaving the crew for a day and making my way into the hills no matter how much i would have liked and so i knew it wasn't possible, didn't even bother to broach the subject and in some way knew that maybe i didn't want to taint that first trip with another... that it was a beautiful, thoughtful and peaceful day of wandering on my own, of seeing the final resting place of a favorite musician not to mention human, that the old cliche of not being able to go home again was kicking around my head...
And so i we bumped our way down the roads of western Jamaica towards Negril there was a content smile on my face... yes i wouldn't be going back to Nine Mile but that was okay, gazing up at the green hills i thought of my dad, i looked back at the boyos, Disaster looking out the window and the I-mac passed out in his seat... even the BW was quiet and looking at the scenery, commenting on how lush it was, i nodded and went back to my thoughts, a cornucopia of images and things gently swirling in my mind... man do i love this island...
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