After living in 82F (27C) most of our lives we children of the sun were in for an even bigger shock, cold weather! I was given a little fake fur blue coat to combat the cold. I remember asking my mother what this thing was and how long I would have to wear it. Her answer was until we get someplace warm, which turned out to be a 2 bedroom brownstone in Brooklyn, New York. Of course being a child of the warmth the cold was unfathomable to me, but here we were living the unfathomable. The beginning of artificial warmth. Needless to say my aversion to the cold never went away, even into adulthood. We were dropped into this labyrinth called New York that we would not be escaping until we were in our 20's. As most stories go it wasn't so bad, with a strong determination I was able to return to the land of my birth. Welcome to my Jamrock story...
In the 80's my family would return to Jamaica mostly for funerals and to visit the Grandparents. These visit made me crave the land of my birth even more. So after leaving college I started returning to Jamaica on my own or with friends. Mostly I would go to Negril, because of all the music, beach and yes the sensimillia. I would then take the short excursions (30 minutes) to visit family members in Sav-la-mar. Of course being young I wanted the excitement of Negril, not yet really appreciating the peace and quite of my home city. But over time this gradually changed. After realizing what a big island Jamaica was, I started going further afield and discovering more of what makes Jamrock so special, and in turn finding out where I came from. Port Antonio, St Andrews, St Elizabeth, just to name a few of the parishes that started to become familiar to me. Age being the great equalizer.
