“Homebound” by AE Ellis

Limbo

2015-10-20 20:07:38 UTC

"The drug did more than stem the pain; she slipped into its arms and was held. She thought of her sister's punctured arms; no wonder."(168)

Confusion

2015-10-20 20:15:11 UTC

to be forge from the oppresed and the oppressor;

"She had arrived in Kingston . . . entering the city on the sea as her ancestors had once done. Some concealed below. Some pacing above, bonnets protecting their finely complected faces from the brutal sun." (168)

Misconstrued Ideals

2015-10-20 20:21:04 UTC

"You are probably sterile . . . all that effort for naught. Lightening up. Eyes for naught. Skin for naught. Fine nose for naught." (169)

The ability to only see beauty in what is presented to you as beautiful based on the popular belief of those in power is nothing but a disability.

Distraction

2015-10-20 20:35:41 UTC

Witch-moth moment (170)

Harriet

2015-10-20 20:37:34 UTC

" Had they suspected, what would they have been reduced to? For her people, but a very few, did not suffer freaks gladly - unless the freaks became characters, entertainment."

"And still she was able to love them. How was that?" (171)

karenpanke — 2015-10-20 20:39:05 UTC

"The erebid moth Ascalapha odorata bears the common name Black Witch. It is considered a harbinger of death in Mexican and Caribbean folklore." (wiki)

Learning Moment

2015-10-20 20:45:01 UTC

No one has done right there whole life; " "This is my grand mothers river! You have no right!""

" T which the woman screamed laughter in response, telling Clare only Massa God could possess river" (173)

Brilliant Flickers

2015-10-20 20:49:16 UTC

We are blessed when we can know the ones we love as their best selves, at their most brilliant moments in time.

"I was fortunate I knew her here . . . Her passion of place. . . her is her; leave it at that."

Mawu-Lisa

karenpanke — 2015-10-20 20:57:18 UTC

Mother, Jamaica, and Mother Jamaica

zvm15 — 2015-10-20 21:00:18 UTC

"I was blessed to have [mother] here. Her passion of place. Her sense of the people. Here is her; leave it at that. But Clare did not speak this out loud; she could not trust her voice." (174)

We get to see Clare make connections between how she views her mother and how she experiences Jamaica.

Ownership

karenpanke — 2015-10-20 21:04:59 UTC

Of water, property, lands, nations, people

Identity

karenpanke — 2015-10-20 21:06:06 UTC

"Harriet, now , girlfriend... finally. "Then you have it done?" "No, man, Cyaan afford it. Maybe when de revolution come... but the choice is mine, man, is made." (168)

Columbus

karenpanke — 2015-10-20 21:28:27 UTC

"She saw her young self differently now - alone, escaped - machete tied to her waist, flag made of Christmas wrap fixed to a strip of bamboo, flourishing the machete and planting the flag, claiming the river - still laying claim to the river, she thought." (173)

Rebirth, "rebaptism"

karenpanke — 2015-10-20 21:32:57 UTC

Dionne Brand

rachel_n_nolan — 2015-10-21 00:47:47 UTC

Trinidad-born Canadian poet; former Toronto Poet Laureate. Dionne Brand's memoir, A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging, can be read as an elliptical, poetic meditation on a short passage by Eduardo Galeano that Brand cites twice: "I'm nostalgic for a country which doesn't yet exist on a map" (qtd. in Map 52, 85)

"un blesse de guerre"

rachel_n_nolan — 2015-10-21 00:50:23 UTC

a wounded war

Leaving your past behind

rachel_n_nolan — 2015-10-21 00:52:29 UTC

"One last look at the mother-country, the coast and cliffs which had been drummed into her at St. Catherine's. She took notice, then turned away." (167)

rachel_n_nolan — 2015-10-21 00:58:12 UTC

"If Jamaica has nothing else, she has at least her beauty." (169)

Aren't the people/culture also part of that beauty?

Womanhood

rachel_n_nolan — 2015-10-21 01:02:52 UTC

Parallels of womanhood; Harriet, Clare finding out she may be sterile, the expectations of what a woman is

The color green

rachel_n_nolan — 2015-10-21 01:13:09 UTC

"Nothing but the chaos of the green-- reaching across space, time too it seemed." (172)

River

rachel_n_nolan — 2015-10-21 13:07:14 UTC

The idea of ownership, who owns the land

The River

zvm15 — 2015-10-21 13:09:08 UTC

The river belongs to women, to God, to the arrogant child. It is an important piece of Clare's connection to Jamaica, and her return to it sparks many memories of her childhood. (172-173).

Mary Seacole

rachel_n_nolan — 2015-10-21 13:09:33 UTC

"Mary Jane Seacole (23 November 1805 – 14 May 1881), was a Jamaican-born woman of Scottish and Creole descent who set up a "British Hotel" behind the lines during the Crimean War, which she described as "a mess-table and comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers," and provided succour for wounded servicemen on the battlefield. She was posthumously awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit in 1991. In 2004 she was voted the greatest black Briton"

Scutari (Üsküdar)

rachel_n_nolan — 2015-10-21 13:11:47 UTC

"Üsküdar, formerly known as Scutari, is a large and densely populated district and municipality of Istanbul, Turkey, on the Anatolian shore of the Bosphorus." (Wikipedia)

IMPERIALISM CARTOON, 1882. 'The Devilfish in Egyptian Waters.' An American cartoon from 1882 depicting John Bull (England) as the octopus of imperialism grabbing land on every continent.

aeellis — 2015-10-24 18:24:04 UTC