On occasion, out of the blue I get requests from different parts of the world to conduct radio interviews or to share my poetry. One of my most recent requests came from the Netherlands from a Dutch woman who ran a school for young women in Maastricht. She read my poems about Rastas and the Euro-Jamaican culture and wanted to have a chinwag with me.
She found it interesting that I had been raised with certain Jewish mannerisms and still maintained my stance even as an adult. I recited a few paragraphs from the poems written during my Jamaicans.com days and then she went off on a tangent asking me all sorts of weird questions.
Now I understand why celebs rarely want to do interviews because the interviewers often make detours into realms they do not want to discuss. Anyhoo, I soldiered on despite the curveball I had been dealt.
Here is how the interview went:
For anonymity we will call the interviewer “Doutzen Devries”.
DD: “Goedemorgen!”
Me: “Guten Morgen……(nerves often makes me get my languages confused). She welcomed me in Dutch, and I answered her in German. Go figure!
The first question was a doozy….
DD: “What marriage advice would you give your younger self.”
Me: “Hmmm. I would tell my younger self not to be a nag. People run away from nags.”
The woman found my answer funny. I sighed. Perhaps we were off to a good start.
Then came the next question.
DD: “Do you believe in angels?”
Me: “I sure do. Good and bad ones walk among us every day.”
DD: “Why do you believe in angels?”
Me: “God could not be everywhere so he dispatched a few good men and women to pick up the slack.”
DD: “You have thought about this quite a bit.”
Me: “Yes, I have.”
By this time, I am not quite sure where she was going with the questions. I hoped it would not be much longer as the reception on my phone was cutting in and out and God forbid, she misinterpreted one of my answers.
DD: “What keeps you going when the going gets tough?”
Me: “This may sound so cliche, but prayer keeps me going. Chanting in particular is very therapeutic.”
DD: “Interesting.”
Me: “No, not really I once scared away my roommate with a Gregorian chant.” True story. Also, music, movies and memories. My 3M Scotch tape for keeping it together”.
DD: “Name one thing that kills marriages?”
Me: (I could not help but chuckle on this one since I am guilty as sin). “A suspicious mind.”
I saw Elvis crooning in the recesses of my mind in all his glory with my 8X10 photo shining brighter than a diamond.
DD: “Why?”
Me: “Because just as you can count the ways you love someone. You can also find the ways that they can be deceptive.”
DD: “In other words a rampant imagination ruins marriage?”
Me: “Pretty much.”
DD: “Suppose you were gifted $100,000.00 out of the blue what would you do with it?”
Me: “Are we talking USD or Nederlands geld? That roughly works out to $87890.00 EUROS?”
DD: “Just about depending on the exchange rate at the time”.
Me: “I would use the money to invest in my business.”
DD: “You are doing fantastisch with these questions.”
I am glad she thought so because my mind began to wander about all the tasks I had yet to complete. I felt like a kid on a school trip. Silently questioning, “Are we there yet?” In my situation I wanted to know are we done yet?
DD: “If you could be any age again, what age would you be?”
Me: “Good question. The teens were too tumultuous and so were my formative years. I think I would revisit my twenties to have a do-over. I was like a doe-eyed deer wandering in the concrete jungle. Everything seemed like a crisis because I had not developed a frame of reference for things beyond my control.”
DD: “Yes, most of us would benefit from reliving those years of wonder.”
Then just when I thought I was saved by the bell. She slipped in that question about La Famiglia.
DD: “What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of your cousins?”
Me: “Honestly, I think of the theater when I think of my cousins. They are dramatic and there is always mega drama brewing. There is never a dull moment when they are around.”
DD: “You’ll be happy to know that this is the final question.”
I wondered if my discomfort was that noticeable or was it just customary for her interviewees to feel like Nascar drivers as they reached the last lap around the track.
DD: “What shows do you miss that used to be on television that are no longer being aired?”
Me: “OMG! This was a question I secretly wished someone would ask me a long time ago. Joan Rivers, God rest her soul, would probably have said, “Can we talk?” Then she would have handed you a long, laundry list.
Since you asked, I miss Knots Landing, Dallas, Falcon Crest, Dynasty, Will and Grace, Frasier, The Nanny, Scandal, and How To get Away with Murder. TV just isn’t the same without shows of this quality.
Doutzen Devries:
"Het was een genoegen om met je te praten." (It's been a pleasure conversing with you). My Dutch that came immediately to mind was: "Zo ook, bedankt." (Likewise. Thank you.) The End. On my maternal side my granny often told me that my ancestral lineage was Scottish, Dutch, Irish & Greek. Somewhere along the lines, my aunt's husband sifted out the Dutch in me from I was a little Girl. I would be known as the Dutch Duchess because I acted like a dry land tourist living in a third world country. One of my favorite clap hands game as a child was, a game I believe all girls growing up in Jamaica played. "I am a pretty, little Dutch girl as pretty as pretty can be-be-be. All the boys around my way are crazy over me-me-me. Bam chi-chi-lala, Bam, Bam." This was positive thinking of a child at its best. In modern times, I now know my suitors think I am too much to handle.
Fighting For My Life Memoir 