The second and last day of Carnival is Carnival Tuesday. Originally we weren’t planning on doing anything that day, but I found out that mud mas is Carnival Tuesday and man, I really wanted to do it.
This is part II – Jouvert, the first event of Carnival, was last week.
By the time five o’clock rolled around, it was time to start getting ready for the Carnival Monday road march, which went through downtown Scarborough. I had a black and neon green mesh and spandex two-piece suit which I wore with Carnival-strength stockings my sister-in-law picked up for me.
Sometimes I’m reminded that while I talk about Tobago fairly often here, I haven’t shared much about our time there. Now seems like a good time to escape there for a little bit.
I didn’t have to wait for spring to come this year. It came when it was supposed to. Maybe the winter was mild, maybe the anticipation of our trip to Tobago made the rest of the cold months go by faster.
The tulip and daffodil greens came up, and I saw buds forming. The forsythia bloomed. One lone daffodil bloomed earlier than all the rest. It was visible through the back windows of the house, and I checked on it each day, eventually watching it wilt, and waited for the others to bloom.
They never did.
Something different happened this past weekend. Lockdown could be summarized as weeks of mental torpor and fatigue, wishing I was inspired to be creative while I was stuck at home. With few exceptions, I crept through the occasional project with little enthusiasm.
Friday came. Finally, I had the energy and inspiration to start a sewing project – one I’d been planning for a long time but hadn’t had the bandwidth to get started on. It came out just as I’d hoped.
The next day, I tackled a wall mural that I’d been planning for months. It was a group project with the kids. We had our moments – like when I hit my head on the door frame while doing some of the detail work on the mural, but somehow, every kid (except my oldest, who didn’t care) got to help paint a section of the mural or consult on color choice.
When you live in a house with others, sometimes when another person experiences a mental shift, it’s like the wind has changed direction and everyone can feel it.
