She came from Planet Claire

Speaking of Barbados, I can remember being on the plane from the island to New York City and then being in NYC. I had just turned 7 years old.

I can still see the constant flow of traffic that I watched, fascinated, from the window of our hotel/motel. I was a little girl on a big adventure, and I had no idea that I would not return to Barbados until I was an adult.

Strangely, I cannot recall my first view of Michigan or the farm in rural Clio, where we ended up. If my mother's memory serves her well at this point, she was less than thrilled.

Not that Barbados was any hot shakes back then. It was not a big tourist destination at that point, so I had never seen that many cars on any road, ever. I also had never seen television. Or snow.

For years after, when it snowed, I would just sit and watch it fall into the light of our outside flood. And chew my fingernails down to the quick. I stopped doing that only after I began smoking.

The United States was the third country in which my mother took up residency. Can you imagine? She was born in Liverpool, moved to London, moved to Barbados after she married my biological father (when I was 3 months old), then moved there (Michigan) to marry a second time.

Now she lives in Gloucester, with a stop in Connecticut in between. My mother will be 78 years old in October.

I keep telling her to write it all down, write it all down, Mom. Now she wants a blog.

Heaven help us all!