My 5 (Ok, 8) Favourite Moments for Team Jamaica at the World Championships in Budapest

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The curtains have come down on the 19th staging of the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary and man, what a finish it was. The final event, the women’s 4x400m relay, literally came down to the last few metres as Femke Bol broke Jamaican hearts all over the world when she pipped Stacey-Ann Williams on anchor to give the Netherlands their first ever medal in this event. It was a full-circle, sweet revenge moment for the Dutch Dolly, who had fallen just about 10m before she could get to the finish line in the first final of the games, the mixed 4x400m relay. But mumz, why yu did afi tek revenge pon we? We deven did mek di finals! We did want yu beat Dem People too innuh.😭

Why yuh dweet, Femke?

Anyway, it is finished and Jamaica claimed 12 medals, equalling the number from Beijing in 2015 and one less than our best haul ever in Berlin in 2009. However, in terms of quality, we have fewer gold medals than we did on either of those two occasions. In the postmortem, we can complain about the missed opportunities and who underperformed, or we can be grateful that we got such a good haul because these games were marked by crosses in the form of injuries and other setbacks. I’m choosing the latter, especially after yesterday’s events which saw my forever bae Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce put her body on the line to ensure the women’s 4x100m relay team could medal. She now has a slight hamstring tear, so her season is most likely done and could go down in history as one of her most difficult ones ever. But we hope she’ll come back in tip top shape for the Paris Olympics next year and get to run that ever elusive 10.5 seconds race that she knows she has in her. 

In my efforts not to wallow and dwell on the negatives, I’m only going to take a look back at the moments that made World Champs special for me. Here goes:

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My Thoughts on the Relays and Team Selection Politricks at the World Championships in Budapest

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By now most of us have seen the video of sprinter Tyquendo Tracey laying out his concerns following his removal from the relay pool for the men’s 4x100m event. I’m not going to go into the details, nex ting mi go end up inna ants nest wid people potential libel suit. But the video is out there on social media, so feel free to watch and draw our own conclusions.

Me looking at all the relay bangarang. (The expression though! I swear our athletes are unintentional comedians and walking memes.😂)

Before that, we were all left scratching our heads and/or cussing about the selection process following the horrific performance of our mixed 4x400m team. Two legs in particular. It just neva look good and it cast a pall over the proceedings. It was a truly inauspicious start and we should have been prepared for the mess to come, but we were distracted by the long wait for our first gold medal (BIG UP YUSELF DANIELLE WILLIAMS! RIGHT THRU!!) and we left all thought of the relays for later. Then Tyquendo’s video dropped and all hell broke loose.

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Budapest World Championships A Stress Me Outtttt!!

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Hello! Hi! Howdy!

How long has it been? Di ‘mount a dust mi did afi blow offa dis blog. Mighty God of Daniel! But I’m back! (Not permanently. I’m just feeling inspired by the ongoing World Championships in Budapest, Hungary.)

Speaking of, why it a stress out Jamaica so? Why it a try move like London 2017, aka that World Champs that we don’t talk about?! Is like somebody work some premium guzu pon wi. Broady drop, Jaydon get injured—two almost sure gold medals and possible championships records just gone soso so. Oblique come fourth, Hansle nuh win, and then to make it worse, Such Girl go win di 100m. Puppa Jeezas!

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Unreasonable Hope

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It will whisper in the wind
and ask of you the unreasonable:
Can you break down that Jericho wall
that guards your heart—
the one you built with the debris of
unkept promises and broken dreams?

Will you rend
that blanket of false security—
that tattered, threadbare thing
you stitched together with skeins of lies
and distractions that now
reeks with the musk of fear?

It will crook its finger and beckon,
asking you to believe the impossible:
that anything is possible,
and that you can chase away the darkness
with a mere pinprick of light.

You know it’s not easy to let hope in.
Easy is to accept things as they are,
easier still to expect the worst.
But hope expects you to work.

It gives you its infinitesimal spark
and requires you to tend it,
add kindling and
gently fan that first tender, orange flame
until a fire roars.

Then it will gently touch your shoulder
and ask you again:
Will you reach out your hands—
let the heat warm the cold fingers of
the hands you’ve been wringing in despair,
let feeling come back into your body
until, cell by cell, you feel alive again?

And with the lifeblood pumping through your veins,
the spark now aglow in your eyes,
will you dare to try one more time?

Say Hello to Alayo Issue 3 – The Winter Edition

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This one took some doing, but we got ‘er done and she is glorious!

Keep hope alive, y’all!

Last year took a lot from us—loved ones, jobs, opportunities, freedom of movement, peace of mind, and the list goes on. By the time we got to December, we were looking forward to the new year with an almost desperate hope, pleading for 2021 to be better.

We know there’s no magic wand to make all the challenges disappear, but there’s indeed something kind of magical about the turn of the year—maybe it’s the energy of billions of people collectively putting their hopes and dreams out into the atmosphere. It’s inspiring and challenges us to dare for more, no matter how the previous year turned out. It’s that excitement of expectancy that led me to focus on HOPE for issue no. 3 of Alayo magazine, which was published at the end of January.

Take a look inside and see how some of my readers held on to hope in the middle of a chaotic year and how they plan to keep looking forward despite the challenges 2021 has already thrown our way.

Circumlocution

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Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

I don’t write because I am afraid.
I am afraid of my words.
I am afraid to search for my words,
of what I’ll find when I plumb
the depths of my feelings to unearth them.
I am afraid of turning on the spigot and having them rush out
—or trickle.
Or worse, there is not a single drop
because the works have rusted from lack of use.

I am afraid of my voice
because the silence in which I suffer
has become my brittle chrysalis
and making any sound might cause it to shatter.
I am not quite ready or able to be a butterfly.

I am afraid of cutting myself open,
my blood the ink on the page
from wounds that won’t heal
because I’m afraid to tend to them, too.

I am afraid.
Of standing naked before myself
and picking myself apart
letter by letter
until I am just bones.

But sometimes a word claws its way out of my belly
and plops upon the page.
I look at this strange thing
that came out of me and it’s ugly and misshapen
but also, somehow, beautiful.

I am so afraid.
But fear is a casket
and I am not yet dead.

So I will go in search of them,
those elusive words that are sometimes
at the tip of my pen and tongue.
I will write myself into my own life’s story
letter by letter
even on crumpled pages
until I am whole.

I Made A Magazine!

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I’m not even going to hitch: I’m proud to present to you the first issue of Alayo magazine.

Isn’t she gorgeous? Twenty whole pages of joy rightchea!

It’s often been said that when life throws you lemons, instead of being bitter, you should use them to make lemonade. Beyonce has a whole album about it too, so there ya go!

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Miss Rena In Memoriam

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Photo by Liv Bruce on Unsplash

If you’ve spent any time around me, you ‘know’ my Miss Rena. I probably talk about her at least once a day, on average. She definitely crosses my mind at least once every day. Born Ena Mae Attride on this day in 1927, she was my grandmother by virtue of being the woman who raised my mother. She was a small, feisty, half-Cuban former floor show dancer who would not hesitate to tell you about yourself, especially if you dared cross her or trouble her own. Think Madea, minus the gun and getaway car. In her younger days, she probably would have fought you, too. She often shared the story of how she was expelled from secondary school (I think it was Convent of Mercy) because she hit one of the Sisters after being caned.

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