My Own Prison

No, I’m not about to start quoting Creed…

We installed gorgeous new burglar proofing across the front door of my grandmother’s house today. It was commissioned a few weeks ago, mocked up, built, and painted over the past week. After more than twenty-five years of a door free of iron bars, here we are. I’m sitting, at this very moment, simultaneously writing and admiring the handiwork. It’s a fine piece of art, in its own way, but one which leaves me with mixed feelings.

The prompt for the new safety measure was a direct result of my desire to keep the front door open all the time. Having lived in condos with floor to ceiling windows for the better part of a decade, it’s a strange sensation to sit in a dark house in the middle of the day. My heart, my soul, yearns for light, and so I’m forever throwing open the doors and windows to let the energy of the universe in. My grandmother would prefer, for safety reasons, that we keep these things tightly bolted, and so a compromise was eventually struck. Up went the gate. On went the locks. I am happy, of course. She feels more secure as I wander about the house and I can rest, happily knowing that my desire to live freely doesn’t put us in any immediate danger. But my happiness is tinged with a touch of regret.

I am now sitting inside a prison of my own making.

I have fond memories of being a child, long before we moved to Canada, and of the various summers we spent with my grandparents after we emigrated, of running in and out of the house with nary a care. Outside of sleeping hours, doors were seldom locked, gates even less so. The front and back doors stood open most of the day, and my brother and I would happily race the concrete curbs along the drains from each end of the house, darting in through an open door and out the other side, in some made up game or another.  I had little comprehension of danger then, and in many ways  I remain trapped in the past, in my understanding of a Trinidad that once was. Having not evolved with the country in many respects, I didn’t grow up in a way that rationalized certain necessary precautions. Much of these are embedded in the day to day lives of Trinidadians, so accustomed to the threat of violence, that their “normal” is self-imposed imprisonment. Gates and padlocks on doors, iron bars across windows, both are meant to keep danger out. These dangers are, sadly, very real, as many members of my family can attest to. If you haven’t felt the threat of violence personally, you are undoubtedly close to someone who has. Such is the reality of life in Trinidad today.  While we were somewhat cautious in my youth, the need for caution has subsequently been amplified by the ravages of time, geographic proximity to the South American mainland, and socio-demographic change.

But caution and fear are funny things, for as much as they serve us well and serve to keep us safe, they keep us trapped. As I look at the new gate, it is with a feeling of skepticism and a touch of sadness. Gone are the days when I can run, barefoot, from the front to the back of the house. Today I can barely chase birds with my camera; the process of unlocking the door is often so arduous that birds are long done whatever fascinating activity they were engaged in.

I am now sitting inside a prison of my own making.

Fear, Freedom, and the Tourist Self

Tourists to the Caribbean are often confronted with worrisome ideas about safety and security of person.  Female tourists of virtually any age, traveling alone anywhere in the world are confronted with this more than any other demographic. Ironically, my lack of fear, admittedly the result of my own myopic views of personal danger, with regards to the security threats in Trinidad has left me a little more daring about my comings and goings than I probably ought to be. I’ve hiked, I’ve wandered, I’ve spent time on beaches until the wee hours of the morning, and all of this has allowed me to see a Trinidad I otherwise would not have had the pleasure of experiencing. But I was afforded such an opportunity for one main reason: I met a man I could trust with my life.

Traveling Trinidad as a single woman is a daunting prospect. It is a little less daunting as a group, of course, but I’ve trekked to various parts of the island with female cousins and our adventuring is always marred by a hesitancy that did not exist when traveling in the company of my aforementioned companion. If we’re hiking to waterfalls, or looking for photographic opportunities, time and time again we are told to find male friends as escorts. This is the only way to be safe(r) here.

This is something I am not accustomed to. While women in Toronto fight battles for equality, they are battles of a very different sort. We don’t worry (at least I don’t worry) about being accosted on the streets of Toronto in any way beyond subtle. I certainly don’t worry that getting out of the car with my camera is going to be viewed as anything other than a mild curiosity. But here, amongst women alone, it’s too dangerous to step out and chase pelicans like the mad twitcher that I am. There’s something supposedly safer about being in the company of men. This, too, is self-imposed imprisonment, but it is something that is unfortunately unavoidable in many contexts.

Of course, fear is not a gender specific thing, nor is our reaction to fear(s) particularly gendered. In my time here I have met many men who have become wonderful friends, but who share the fears of women with regard to their personal safety and security. For this reason, they too, would not do things they deem “risky”, in groups or otherwise, and it is this that traps us all as tourists in our own country, preventing us from seeing and experiencing the Trinidad that possesses so much untapped potential.

And so here I sit, in my own prison. Gates on the outside of my house, gates on the outside of my mind. I miss my adventurous friend, whom I loved, and love still, dearly.  He is gone from my life now, in most ways that matter, but he showed me a Trinidad I have always wanted to see, and knew deep in my heart existed. For that I am eternally grateful.  I have struggled for the last few months, trying to decide whether to write of us, debating whether to share our own private story, but I have finally decided it is a story worth telling another day. In that, at least, I can give freedom to something.

With arms wide open,