Releases in Breathing

A lot has been going though my mind lately. Too much to stop and take the time to write it here in any coherent way. So I decided to just write it and hope that in maybe a sentence or two may make sense.

I have been having many dreams lately of women, sagely women in fact. It's been happening for a while now since I wrote "Spirit voices" as posted earlier. At that time I met a bunch of older women and thought that the message was that I needed to learn something from them. I have been doing just that. I have been gathering encouragement to grow emotionally and in my writing. I have been learning to be me in all situations no matter what is happening around me or what anyone else thinks. I have been loving openly. Lately as trivial as it sounds I have been learning to breathe.

Doing Yoga I am learning unfortunately that my mind and body doesn't relax, never relaxes. My mind being an abstract painting or swirling brush strokes is actually quite normal being bi-polar. Especially lately that I am in manic mode. But imagine trying to clear your mind and meditate and just breathe to realize that you just can't. It is quite scary. Now that I am aware of it I seem to be trying to relax in everything I do.

The last exercise we had was to send positive energy and good universal wishes to someone we love. A tear started rolling down my cheek I started trying to fight it then remembered "Sat nam". If I am the embodiment of truth then my love is true, and the fullness I felt of sending that true love is true. A stretch I know but it is the best I could explain the feeling I had that evening....though I still could not relax.

I lie awake at night and try to relax my body to the point where I am soaking into the bed bit by bit. Of course concentrating on this means my mind is working and still not relaxing....and when I do sleep, the women come.

Oshun comes.

Oshun is the beautiful and benevolent Orisha of love, war, life, marriage, sex and money. I am not Orisha. I have an Orisha grandfather who had a great influence on my life and self image however. I did not know about Oshun. She came to me one night, I cannot remember now the circumstances of the dream but she walked up to me and said very clearly "You have a gift, stop ignoring it." At first I wondered which gift she was talking about. I asked her her name and she smiled at me kindly, knowingly, "you know me .....(she called me by another name I cannot remember)" and started to walk away. I laughed and called after her (in another language) calling her Oshun.

Later the name kept coming up. My friend mentioned her. Apparently it was the time of Oshun in the Orisha faith. It still does not mean more than a slightly passing fact to me. However, I accepted her advice and started paying attention to all of my gifts and am awaiting the epiphany moment that should tell me what my next move should be. For now I am practicing to breathe.

Truth I Am

The purpose of the writer is explained very simply. We are the present representation of the truth. Our magic lies in not only capturing but re-directing that truth an element as flexible as probably anything you would ever come across. I have been thinking about this recently and realized that in fact whatever a writer writes once written becomes the truth. The fact is that the moment you pick up my writing fictional or non you are expecting a truth from me.

Now consider that alongside what i call surreal writing only cause I don't quite know the actual literary name for the form. Lately I read a book called "Like Water for Chocolate" written by Laura Esquivel. The novel takes you on an emotional ride using the ingredients of recipes set to time. The writer starts the novel talking about chopping onions finely to prevent crying and goes on to speak of her aunt Tita. The second paragraph starts

"Tita was so sensitive to onions, any time they were being chopped, they say she would just cry and cry; when she was still in my great-grandmother's belly her sobs were so loud that even Nacha, the cook, who was half deaf, could hear them easily. Once he wailing got so violent that it brought on an early labor. And before my great-grandmother could let out a word or even a whimper, Tita made her entrance into this world, prematurely, right there on the kitchen table amid the smells of simmering noodle soup, thyme, bay leaves, and cilantro, steamed milk, garlic, and, of course onion. Tita had no need for the usual slap on the bottom, because she was already crying as she emerged; maybe that was because she knew then that it would be her lot in life to be denied marriage. The way Nacha told it, Tita was literally washed into this world on a great tide of tears that spilled over the edge of the table and flooded across the kitchen floor."

Every time I read that passage cause I did more than once a smile comes from my heart. The fact is that that flood of tears brought on y onions with the power to move a child unborn to a flood of creation "Yes I know how that sounds" is marvelous. And whether you as the reader believe it fully or not the fact remains that that flood was Tita's truth. The ability to shape something like that into a believable truth is not as simple as it seems. I have been practicing to write my surreal truths mostly about fire. For some reason the image of fire and the concept of heat and all that can come with it refuses to let me sleep a full night. I'm still practicing.

I started my first Yoga class yesterday. Kundalini Yoga with Elspeth Duncan. During the class she introduced us to the chant "Sat Nam" which means "Truth is my identity" It is a powerful thing to be the personification of truth, a liberating realization and an almost daunting responsibility still I had to think of the truth the writer reports, creates, represents and I had to smile to myself. Every time I pick up my pen I create truth. I send a truth out to the universe. Remember "Stranger than Fiction" with Will Ferrell? Imagine if every character you created was real, what about the ones you left hanging with no end to their truth? or the ones you killed off just cause you didn't know where to take them next.

After a friend of mine read some of my earlier work she asked me "Does everyone die in your stories?" Now that I know my pen sounds out a truth, my truth in many ways I guess I will have to reconsider some of my endings. They still aren't going to be happy and honky dory cause most things in life just don't end that way right? Still it's important to remember that conviction "Sat Nam."

Change's fear

And still….
I would reach to you
to hold, and hope
through star kissed fingers,
in greying days,
the feelings you whispered
into the past,
like diseased memories
slithering, scarred, pink
into my now.
Stopping them where they
lie discarded, mouldering
in waiting for
the movement of Death to pity.
Change has passed them,
skipping time for fear
that they may catch
and spread beyond
logical repair, her only
thinly veiled
hold of me.

Voicing It Out

Think about your voice…think long and hard about its tone, its pitch, inflections…think about it. Now write it in a sentence. It’s not very easy to lay your voice on a sheet of paper and now that I’m thinking about it there is so much left to expansion in a voice, so much of yourself up for grabs. There is so much vulnerability in that little detail. Your reader thinks they know you by how you write, what you say and how you say it.

I’ve been looking recently at the voices of some of the Caribbean writers I have come to adore and respect. Edwidge Danticat, Derek Walcott, Jamaica Kincaid and Erna Brodber all have distinguishable voices. If I chose to read an except from any of them without telling you who they were I’m sure u may guess right away. Think of writers like Naipaul and Lovelace, like Walcott, their voices are both known and undeniably distinguishable. I have compared all of these to my own voice. Walcott has a slow and deliberate voice, simple but learned with an almost Shakespearean intimidation. To me at least. Danticat seems relaxed and deeply connected . Her stories carry you with them. Her imagery is blow mind and subtly surprising you. I love that about her writing.

I don’t know what my voice is. I know I wish to have as calm a voice as Walcott, one that gives me an air almost “Oh that?...it came to me as I sipped my Jamaican coffee, looking out at the “galvanised” sea.” I’d like the carrying power of Danticat, so I can drop you in the middle of my story or poem and have you convinced that stories were braided into your plaits and slipped into your Saturday cowheel soup.

The novel “Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home” by Erna Brodber and the inspiration of this blog’s name, explores the finding of the voice and the self. I can relate to this completely, looking for my own. Something in me however, does not allow me to shout it just yet. I want to listen to my voice; simply hear it. I want to be able to hold it and nurture it till it sings my stories. I want to tell the same story someone else told you five mins ago and make mine distinguishable by MY voice.

“Voice” I have always thought comes naturally at first. Slipping out in the sentence you didn’t edit the life out of yet. Surprising even you in the re read. I admit (reluctantly) that the edit may help but how do you balance it? How do you change a word to one YOU would not usually use, doesn’t it perhaps alter your voice? Vocabulary is a major part of it.


Then as a growing “Caribbean writer” how do I know my voice is Caribbean enough? Kinkaid I think has an elegant Caribbean voice. Walcott in “Omeros” made me so admiringly jealous. He is the writer most times that cause me to kick myself and ask “Who you really tryin to fool? You? A writer?! Ha ha ha”. Maybe I should mention coconut trees more often.


There is a lot of thought that deserves to be allocated to your voice as a writer it can make or break a story and leaves an impression of who you are, where you’re from, what growth potential you may have, and you general though pattern on your readers. Everyday I think I may be ready to shout something shouts back from the inside…
“Pickney please! Go eena Kumbla!”

Listen...Learn

I’m just back from my “Earth” ‘Lunch’. Today I decided to read something new. I took with me an essay written by Stephen King called “Everything you need to know about successful writing in ten minutes”. What amazed me about it besides the simplicity, and here I tap myself on the back is that I was well on my way all along. The rules are simple, do it naturally, simply and enjoy it. I think I ask myself too often what I’m doing and where I would end up. Taking criticism to heart from anyone who appears to delve into a somewhat literary critique of my work and ignoring the nods of “It’s really good Krys.”


I have yet to write a serious piece where a number of people pin point a specific area they all have a problem with. One or two disagreements in the placements of words is not a bad thing. They are also not set-in-stone-end-of-my-career opinions. Giving up come too easily for me. Of course I disregard the “nonsense” pieces, the ones that were written as pure venting. However, the serious ones, the ones that came to me in dreams and whispered to me while I did something else unconnected in every way I re-read, re-write, take a black sharpie to, to make sure I’m saying exactly what, not so much me as the character needs to say.


So I have a glimpse of what my first novel will be. Ironic is that the story is about a writer being visited by her character, trying his best to get her to tell his story. To paint him the way he really is. Sound familiar? I started writing it 2 years ago and for some reason I can’t seem to finish it. I’ve lost it and written it over. It is cause of this stubbornness I’ve decided it has to be a novel. There was so much depth under that little story, so much to tell. The thought of a novel scares me so very much. It deserves the kind of devotion and discipline that I think I lack totally. In high school my cousin taught me art. I remember her saying in that slightly bored high pitch tone of hers “Who Krys? She just lazy. Anything she can’t do in 20 minutes so don’t do.” Sadly she was right. I’ve proven that to myself over and over as I grew older. Mrs. Brodber my short story writing teacher in Jamaica told me “Krys you need to concentrate you too lazy man.” We would sit in class, she would give us a topic, then 3 hrs to write a story. After 20 mins I’ll be done.
“Yuh sure yuh done?”
“Yes miss”
We’ll get the night to think it over, re-read and edit. I would nod knowing that I may change a fullstop, if so much, and come back the next day. It was a bad habit I developed. Now I know write it, come back, put it down for a month, read it again. Like Stephen King says “Only God gets it right the first time.”

Faith and Fates

Writing itself is an act of faith, and nothing else. EB White




There is a part of me that yearns for freedom. That loathes the morning and the routine that comes with it. There is so much more in the world for me to see. I want to know the speed the grass grows at in India or if Peppermint tea will steam, drifting up and slightly to the left as it does in a little dorm room in Jamaica, if I am sailing to Tortola on a Saturday morning. The world as vast as it is seems to be a trap, closing me off and limiting my growth. I used to dream of the transformation of the day I would step out of my Kumbla and be the best writer this side of the world would have ever seen. I wanted to read in the papers that “Krys-Darcelle Dumas is the female Derek Walcott and we expect nothing less of her.” I wanted to be able to nod my head confidently knowing that it’s exactly what I could be. I would be a successful writer with my secluded beach house, where my inspiration would come to me in whispers over lattice works. I would be able
These days my dreams of freedom are changing. I am losing heart and had made my mind up a couple months ago that maybe I am reaching too far with this writing dream. Perhaps I should keep my day job, work my 8 - 4:30 and write my stories as my vents. That is of course provided any story decides to be told by me again. I feel untrained to tell the stories; like they are skirting around me waiting for a crack in the Kumbla to seep in, to peep and watch me till they think I have matured enough to be given the honor. Of course it is this thought that makes me feel not good enough. It is this thought that causes me the panic. I am wrapped tight now. Changing slowly and I’m not sure for the better. Each day that goes by makes me feel weaker, less able to fulfil my duties to these stories. My characters float inside my head demanding I find the strength to give them the life they torment me for. If I open the Kumbla however, that is it. Today would have to be for today. The Kumbla will be ruined. Where will I find another?

Without End

I am choking. There are words in me pushing every which way trying to get out but for some reason refuse to be penned. Words that become embodiments of my fear, personifications of every mental obstacle I admit I may have put on myself. It hurts. "KumblaChild" was started with the hopes of making me write everyday. Something, every single day even if it was only a sentence it would be one less inner fight. Since I was a child, though some may argue I still am, I have been writing everyday. I kept journals of my rantings, angst filled and emotionally charged; huge books specifcally made for that purpose guarded with all energy from curious eyes. The important thing is that I wrote.

I have not written anything I think of value in over 8 months. The thought is nagging constantly reminding me of my writing goals, haunting me nightly sitting in wait outside my window.I am starting to panic now. Imagine thinking that as a caribbean writer u will not gain recognition or respect till you're at least 50. That gives me 30 years give or take a few, to fail at this.

I need inspiration to get these stories out. I have heard them but can't tell them. How do you lift a heavy tongue? How do u teach it to pronounce words it has never heard? I have written half stories. Stories of characters coming to life, fighting to be told. They stand just as they are, untold, unread, unwritten...