Pot Spoon Monologues: Happy Mother’s Day!

Mommy, My Sis and Me

My mother could wield a pot spoon with the best of them. In fact, she was so good most times I didn’t even see her com­ing, but I always felt her. She surely held sway and the upper-hand for many a thwarted child­hood rebel­lion.  In hind­sight, her fury was a beau­ti­ful thing because I was her first and she was deter­mined to pour every­thing into me. Truly she would make and remake me over the years.  And there were oth­ers who were equally invested in my best. Aun­ties,  Bigga Cousins, a Nana and a Grand­mother.  They all took part in the rais­ing. After all, as I was reminded ever so often: I wasn’t “dragged up”, I was “brought up”.

And in the bring­ing up some things just stuck.  No one might have sus­pected such, or maybe there was some hope held out. I was such a “spe­cial” child, always in some sauce or the other and “armed to the teeth with ques­tions.”  My mother would say “you have a plas­ter for every sore.”  I did.  My one sav­ing grace: I was never the child talk­ing about, “licks must cool.” Ha! I knew bet­ter than that. Bet­ter to bawl mud­doh than pre­tend indifference.

How­ever, the Pot Spoon Mono­logues is not so much about licks, although the title does spring from the focused agility of a par­ent or parental author­ity (granny, aun­tie, cousin, neigh­bor, teacher, prin­ci­ple etc etc) to bear down with say a pot spoon in one hand and the wrath of his­tory (past, present and future) or it could have been God on the other.  The Pot Spoon Mono­logues is about all things in sea­son, and those things, in this case are rep­re­sented by col­lo­qui­alisms or expres­sions that have been per­fectly sea­soned over generations.

The fol­low­ing col­lo­qui­alisms are from my house to yours:

1. “Who carn hear does feel.”  Per­haps the one I heard the most and feel I did.
2. “Hurry dog eat raw corn.”  I was beyond curi­ous, so this applied spades.
   
3. “See me and come live wid me is two dif­fer­ent things.” Truer words were never spo­ken. Even now a few could stand to be reminded.
4. “Every skin teeth nuh laugh.” I was not check­ing anyone’s ceme­tery to verify.
5. “Time long like twine…” This one always just hung in the air for me, like dun dun dun… It was good enough to make me afraid of my shadow. LOL. Per­haps that was the point.
6. “Keep liv­ing.” Period. Full Stop. What can be said after this one is invoked? Seri­ous question.

Some of my favorites gleaned from friends and fam­ily for this post:

1. “Me naar clean grung foo mon­key to run pon.”  In other words you meet it clean, it’s in your best inter­est to leave it that way.
2. “Play wid puppy, puppy lick u tail.” What comes to mind is lay­ing down with dogs and com­ing up with fleas, except you know it still goes a lot deeper.
3. “Watch out for how deh face cut like a bill on both sides.” This one I was told is for “dan­ger­ous” peo­ple, those wolves in sheep cloth­ing char­ac­ters. There was or is a tool called a bill from my great great aunt’s gen­er­a­tion. It has a sharp point. This say­ing is com­par­ing the inten­tions of peo­ple to that object.
4. “Mon­key know what tree to climb.” Love this one. Indeed expe­ri­ence teaches us where we should take a risk and where we should hold back.  Some risks or trees aren’t worth it.
5. “New broom sweep clean but old broom knows where the dirt is.” A friend thought that this one could be about friend­ship i.e. you make new friends all the time, but your old­est, truest friends know you best.
6. “Pig de ask he mother why he mouth so long. Mother said wait.” This one reminds me of “Time long like twine…” Expe­ri­ence is ever the best teacher.

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