You are Here! Why are you here?

It’s been said that no one liv­ing in Orlando is from Orlando. The first time I heard it, blar­ing from my hop-scotch car radio, I thought I had mis­heard. Was it really true? And then I had a few months there where every­one I talked to, from wait staff to car deal­ers, to busi­ness types mak­ing their way per­ilously on cob­bled streets, to those work­ing in the pace­maker that is Orlando’s tourist indus­try, would all hail from elsewhere.

And as if to shock me many would say some­thing like, my girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/mother/cousin—you name it—is from St. Croix or St. Kitts or some other famil­iar Caribbean locale.

As an aside, I’ve met so many islanders in Orlando, I won­der if there is still a place in the world that we have not ven­tured and survived.

Hav­ing done the col­lege thing in NYC, I’ve never been closer to home in a US State than I am now. For bet­ter or worse, it’s where I’ve set­tled down in mar­ried life and a small mea­sure of adult­hood. So when a multi-talented friend asked me point blank, “why are you here!?” in the aisle of the Barnes and Noble, I could hear the unfin­ished, ‘…when you could be there.’

I didn’t take offense. How could I when it’s a ques­tion I’ve often posed to myself. Fact is, the ques­tion is one of those daunt­ing ones that very well could pre­sume to take a life­time to answer. It can cut at the quick and chaff depend­ing on the one ask­ing and your own peace with the process. “Why am I here?” or the more apt “Why am I here, when I could be there?”

Why are any of us here, when we could be any­where else?

I love that any­one imag­ines the Caribbean as the place to be. Regard­less that their fer­vor is much asso­ci­ated with the old tourism tag lines of sun, sand and sea. In fact, I would ven­ture that these are the main things that most folks from the region take for granted. These are not the rea­sons we stay and they most assuredly are not the sum total of why we leave.

We stay for love of coun­try and we leave for love of coun­try. We stay as a mat­ter of choice as much as cir­cum­stance; and we leave because it is an option as well as an opportunity.

It is only impor­tant to know that these deci­sions are not entered into lightly.

I’ve already men­tioned my love and long­ing for St. Kitts. I miss it, I miss it, I miss it! But I’ve always been a bit of a rolling stone–and then cir­cum­stances con­spired, and love came knock­ing, and before I knew it I was hemmed up.

So I am here, but I am myself. And I am able to con­tribute to the health and wealth of another nation because of there, and on occa­sion, as with DASHEEN and in my writ­ing I get the oppor­tu­nity to give back.

Now, here’s what some lovely folks that I am priv­i­leged to read and/or know have to say about being here, instead of there:

Patrice Eliz­a­beth Grell Yur­sik of the must-read Afro­bella: “I miss Trinidad because of my fam­ily, my friends, the food, the weather. But I cur­rently live in Amer­ica because of the oppor­tu­nity, and because I found my true love here. I know this may sound strange, but from an early age I knew that my des­tiny wasn’t in Trinidad. I didn’t have the capac­ity or abil­ity to be a doc­tor, lawyer, banker, accountant…I couldn’t do any of the jobs that guar­an­tee suc­cess in my home­land. I wanted to be a pro­fes­sional writer and work in a fun, cre­ative capac­ity. I was able to find suc­cess doing that here. I’m not so sure I could have done it there.”

Juli Gar­riques who lives in NYC and gets home to Jamaica about once a year didn’t mince words and I appre­ci­ated her can­did response: “I’m here to make a bet­ter life for me and my fam­ily. I think 75 per­cent of the peo­ple who are here come because of finan­cial rea­sons. You will not find a wealthy per­son who just ups and leaves their coun­try and come to the United States. We come to make a bet­ter life.”

All the more rea­son I found Roy Jainandan’s per­spec­tive so enlight­en­ing: “I am here because of the Lord’s per­fect plan…It does not mat­ter where we live since our stan­dard of liv­ing has not changed. I served as a pilot and Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions for an air­line for twenty-six years. This pro­vided me with gen­er­ous finan­cial and other resources, and req­ui­site skills to func­tion in my present role… I now work in an envi­ron­ment with the best group of peo­ple that I know. As a fam­ily, we enjoyed a great life in Guyana and still do in Orlando, USA. We remain debt free… My two sons have (been blessed with) won­der­ful edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties — my older son is in Den­tal School in an Ivy League uni­ver­sity (Uni­ver­sity of Penn­syl­va­nia). My younger son is an under­grad­u­ate junior in col­lege as well. We are able to travel and have vaca­tions as we did when we were in Guyana. This all just to say that there is no change from our Guyanese lifestyle.”

“Cul­ture and her­itage are direc­tion to help you move for­ward… Cul­ture is a rock in a hard place.” Iyanla Van­zant — Acts of Faith

So why are you here, when you could be there?

Photo Credit: Jamming@Lake Eola, Roberto Mirand

ABOUT THE WRITER

Hi there, I’m Tynisha C. Leon, writer, West Indian, mango-lover, founder and editor-in-chief of DASHEEN mag­a­zine — the online des­ti­na­tion where cul­ture feeds imag­i­na­tion. Join the cul­ture con­ver­sa­tions on Face­book, Twit­ter and Tum­blr!

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