vetiveroil

 July 12th, 2026 This time around last week, my grandma passed. her name was G esula .  A name I am ashamed to admit I forgot she was called. For a long time she has been: Grandmère.  Granmè. Grandma.  Madan Gerard.  And on  occasions so far and few  they're closer to distant memory, she was G esula .  Her passing didn't come as a total surprise, but it's been a shock nonetheless. And I find myself feeling a sudden bout of anger and grief now that I couldn't quite access even five days ago.  It feels so unfair to me that her life came and went, undoubtedly without pain, and where is her retribution? Where is her Iris Avenue? Where is she now? Did she suffer? Did she think of me before transitioning?   It's dawning on me that I don't have many photos of her, if any. I do not know the intimate details of her life. I don't know the name of her parents, whether she had siblings, her favorite food, or anything that made her a human ....

 February 28th, 2026 Today I remembered that tiny piece of the island I was born on.  I remembered my grandma. I remembered being rocked to sleep on a late afternoon on my dad's lap. How his voice hummed and his heart thumped, and his anxious tics served as a tonic to make me fall asleep.  I remembered the taste of black coffee hit the back of my tongue.  How it felt to eagerly await the arrival of my aunty who always brought me a pink and white sachet of  Pistache grillée .  I remembered my red and white uniform dress. My classmate Coralie . How my father used to hold my hand tightly as we crossed the streets of Champ de Mars .  I remember tiny statuettes of the Neg Mawon for sale, carved from wood and dipped in black lacquer.  I remember the time my grandma took us on a pilgrimage, and how foreign it was ride a donkey .  I remember tiring myself out and lying on the tiled corridor floor in our house.  Colored pencils scattered about, ...

June 6th, 2025 The first time I ever saw my father as a boy I was twenty-two years old.  The beauty of life is in how subtle it all is. How we can trek between realms without ever realizing it. For the first time in nearly a century, the sun has risen and set without my grandpa - my darling grandpa. I began to understand the preciousness of death - not just life. I understood that a husband, a friend, a father, a grandfather, a person had passed on.  The grief I experienced came from a place of understanding the weight of a life.  Today, I am honoring you among the ancestors.  On this table, I lay a wreath in your honor.  “Consider this – nothing is permanent. Someday, the place we call home will be emptied from the inside out...” - Noashin Ghanbari, Transient - vetiveroil

PORT-AU-PRINCE "Land of my mother's mother's mother.  Under the grace of the sun I sat behind my infant sister, watching her little hands touch.  The land where my grandmother's mother birthed 9 - and buried 6.  Where the soil is rich, and so is our skin.  T he place where I received my very first compliment. "une belle noire" - the streets where my father stopped to hold my hand as we made our way across the street.  Port-au-Prince..land of sweet, sweet fruit, fragrant ceremonies, and bitter fights.  You have given me so much, Port-au-Prince. I love you, and shall always return to you.  My dearest Port-au-Prince, the air of my very first breath still lingers in you.  Port-au-Prince,  I . Love. You. Art is vivid, streets are crowded, markets are loud.  You tickle every sense I have.  One day I was a girl in a red and white uniform.  Today I am becoming a woman in black.  All these years, I did not realize it was you that I...