You Cant really Go Home Again

Recently I found a Jamaican bakery. Fresh baked patties, cocoa bread and warm bread.

I was on a comfort food high. I was home again.

JPennant: mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
JPennant: patty and cocoa bread. fresh baked
JPennant: man. it makes miss jamaica
JPennant: :-D
k a t e: I CANNOT WAIT TO GO TO JAMAICA
k a t e: i have always wanted to go
k a t e: hopefully next year
JPennant: you will have fun :-)
JPennant: Myself, I prefer the mountains to the beaches.. but its all good
JPennant: When I was a kid we used to drive 4 hours across the mountains from Kingston to my mothers place in Runaway Bay for summer vacations
k a t e: nice
JPennant: and after scaring ourselves shitless with the deeeeeeeeeep valleys.. youd see this big FLASH of blue
JPennant: thats the first sight of the North Coast
JPennant: oh man
JPennant: every shade of blue and green there is. Like visual soul food.
JPennant: then wed plunge back into the mountains, but going downhill
JPennant: hehehe.. not long after is when Id get roadsick
JPennant: the other thing in getting the food that made me miss Jamaica
JPennant: the girl behind the counter is of palestinian descent
JPennant: the owner is chinese
JPennant: and we were all speaking jamaican patois
JPennant: we're just all jamaicans. Little of that racist cultural crap you find outside the caribbean.
JPennant: man I miss that
k a t e: :-(
k a t e: how long has it been
JPennant: 1982
k a t e: yikes
JPennant: yeah
k a t e: you gotta get back home!
JPennant: yeah
JPennant: most of my family and friends moved to the US
JPennant: my father is back there
JPennant: I dunno
k a t e: you'll go back one day!

I dunno. Although I dont feel particularly rootless It feels as if Ive left a lot behind to become myself.

Last night, I went to that bakery, but it had closed for the weekend.. but next to it there was a small Roti shop (basically chickpea floured flatbread and spicy stewed meats and vegetables. Often served burrito style, but traditionally served side by side.

The man at the counter was visibly irritated as I tried to order it the way I thought I remembered it.

Trying to remember through the murk of decades was the epiphany that I needed that I was trying to connect to strangers, no matter how familiar the accent and faces.

Even if and when I go back to Jamaica or go to Trinidad.. I'll be an outsider.

The Roti was better than I remembered. I also remembered I didnt particularly CARE for Roti back as a child.

But, I enjoyed it anyway. To connect to the home I no longer truly belong to.