Writer's Excerpts

Going Home

by Kearie Daniel

published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto - Book 5

“We’re going back to Barbados,” my mother announces. She says this as she stands in her kitchen, wearing beige capris, black t-shirt and slippers. She is suburbia incarnate. She says it surrounded by dishes my dad has dirtied but refused to wash. She says this as the radio, which has been tuned to one station for the past 21 years, blasts the CBC news at six. She says, “We’re going back to Barbados,” with a big smile on her face, as her hand rhythmically lathers her homemade concoction of diluted dish soap and freshly squeezed lemon, specially made to “cut the grease” on the dirty dishes.

I’m sitting at the kitchen table, eating fried bakes with cheese, pulling the gooey dough apart, popping it in my mouth. I’m sitting there eating and my mother is so distracted by her thoughts of Barbados, she makes no comment about the food in my mouth. She doesn’t stare at me with her large round eyes, she doesn’t peer at me slowly, letting her eyes roll over me up and down. She doesn’t poke or prod me, shaking her head and saying what I already know—“You really need to lose weight.” She doesn’t pinch my waist or lean toward me to whisper, “See, you’re jiggling, you really REALLY need to lose some weight.”

To read the full piece, purchase TOK: Writing the New Toronto - Book 5