Mom always had a flower garden at the front of the house and Daddy put much time and energy into fencing it off from the dogs. Mom seemed very content with his efforts. It was in that garden, with instructions from my mother that I first started gardening. My siblings and I pulled weeds and were rewarded with glasses of icy-cold water, nasty scratches from warty rose bushes and bites from fire ants that itched for days. Needless to say I did not always love gardening.
In the garden you will find an assortment of roses in mostly pinks, purples and whites, several species of orchids, a Hydrangea macrophylla, plumbago, amaryllis, bougainvillea, periwinkle and pink and white gerber daisies. I distinctly remember that there was a buddliea growing there when I was a child. I don't know how mom manged that in zone 12+ climate. There are scores of tall orange zinnias throughout the garden competing for space with shado beni (Erynginum sp.) which is a favorite cooking herb used throughout the island. The soil of much of Trinidad is one of heavy clay and I am always amazed at how well plants grow and thrive in this almost airless mucky mass. I (accidentally) chopped an earthworm in half and realized that even they seem happy there. My folks compost all kitchen vegetable and fruit scraps to add to the soil, along with rotted trunks and branches and dead banana leaves.
The rainy season was ending on that trips and the garden was overgrown with weeds. I've undertaken the task of adding, transplanting and weeding whenever I visit and a year before I planted a couple junipers, duranta, clerondendrons, vitex, Chinese privet, white and lilac lantanas, Salvia splendens, some grape ivy and other shrubs. Except for the salvia, everything has at least doubled in size and I had to make adjustments and move plants around. The lantanas brought many butterflies to the garden and along with them came the lizards, praying mantis and birds. At seventy-nine mom was still puttering around the yard and still always had a glass of cold water for me nearby while I worked.
The side and back yards were covered with small trees, shrubs and ferns. At Christmastime the sorrel (Hibiscus sabdariffa) was ready for picking and the pigeon peas bushes were flowering. They were surrounded by oregano, peppers and Spanish thyme growing near banana trees and an occasional lime or lemon tree. There was a solitary papaw and an avocado tree growing among the flowering shrubs but I resisted pulling or chopping them down to keep peace with my folks. In the back yard there were mango trees (the variety of a couple had yet to be determined since they had not yet borne fruit), a pommecythere tree (Sponddias dulcis) and a Portugal tree (Citrus x nobilis). There was a pineapple patch, peppers and pots of begonias, bougainvilleas and anthuriums sprinkled all around the large rectangular wire frame that was supported on three-foot steel pipes creating the "bleach". That frame was where my mom spread soapy white clothes to be bleached by the sun. It is still the best and natural way to make white clothes whiter. Yam vines entwine many shrubs and the fence between our house and the neighbors on the left. Competing for space on the fence are passionflower vines. Passionflowers entice scores of passion-fruit butterflies, whose cocoons hang in the diamonds of the fence.
The house sits at the belly of a long street that began as a hill, then flattened and sloped slightly at its tail. Directly in front of and perpendicular to the house is the start of another street that slopes downhill before it suddenly rises to meet another, parallel to ours but much longer and curving at the lower end. Our house is surrounded by the backsides of commercial buildings that outline the main street and junctions. It is also surrounded by sky and I learned to point out Ursa Minor at an early age. It is the house where many of my siblings and their families will converge over the weekend to celebrate Mother's and Fathers' day, anniversaries and most major holidays. During those days the house will be teaming with women cooking curries, making dhalpourrie and paleau while children and dads wrestle around the house and yard. I often sit here in New York, homesick but happy thinking of their happiness and my mother's smiles.
It is delightful to begin each morning with a cup of tea on the veranda of this house (or gallery as we Trinis call it) lined on two sides by whitewashed concrete pots spilling with all shades of bougainvillea, velvety and shiny begonias, crown of thorns and gerbera daisies. I look over the garden from the balcony listening to the kiskadees, mockingbirds and dad's caged finches sing. I am nourished by the evening of watching the swallows dart about as the sun set behind silhouetted buildings, telephone and electrical lines, which are tightropes for epiphytes. It is there in that gallery that I, a gangly sixteen-year old introduced Darryl, my first love to my stunned family. It is there that I've have had the most aggravating and stimulating conversations with my parents and siblings while neighbors from one end of the long street paraded back and forth.
As a teen I sat in that gallery, in a spot at the top of the stairs on Saturday evenings, weary from the day's shores but content. I watched the sky bleed and darken while listening to Casey Kasem and local radio stations wrapping up the weekly countdown of top eighties pop, rock and country music.
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This old swan planter has been around for a long as I can remember.
Sometimes, if was lucky, I would catch a glimpse of ultramarine blue, the color on the upper side of the wings of the six o'clock butterfly as it revealed itself after sitting with its brown underside wings camouflaged against fallen banana leaves. That spot at the top of the stairs, under the open sky, with memories of my weathered parents looking over the rail into the garden below, still remains another very good reason to frequently go home.
