In with the old

New Year’s resolutions are not the thing they once were, it seems. The fashion today instead is to declare the things you are leaving behind in the Old Year.

That list would be so dreadfully long, though. And, at the end of the day, to leave things behind is just as much a grand intention as any old-fashioned resolution. What seems more authentic–and easier–to me is to close 2018 recalling the ’18 things that I most treasured, and intend to take with me into 2019.

The Caribbean prime minister we all deserve. This year I wrote about the despair of looking out from the Parliament gallery during sittings at the bleak expanse of the Government bench; and about the rage Cabinet ministers so easily spark in me at a mean spirited refusal to protect citizens. I wrote just this month of the AG’s commitment to deny domestic-violence legal protections to same-sex couples that Barbados, Belize, Guyana and Jamaica already offer theirs. I wrote that one way I’ve found to make my votes count under our first-past-the-post election system, and with a disgraced government minister as my MP, is to spoil my ballot with a written message.

I also wrote about the sheer excitement the May election in Barbados created–something I think we felt here only in 1986–and my own awe on meeting her at Mia Mottley’s clarion vision of creating a country we want to leave to our children.

What I will take into 2019 is my short list of Mia-inspired prime ministerial must-haves: “incisiveness, passion, thick-skinnedness and engagement.” And the optimism that, undiscovered somewhere under our noses, are talented, visionary politicians who can break the ageing mould of neoliberal governance and tribal politics, and offer us 2015 leadership choices different from the patronage of the UNC and the paternalism of the PNM.

The Greenvale & other rescuers. I’ve written month after month about how wilful state policies of inequality and disownership breed banditry and undermine citizen commitment to innovation, shared sacrifice and sustainability. From the SEA exam and the irrelevance to the economy of our school curriculum, to how every customer-serving institution – from the Magistracy to Licensing – prioritises enforcing rules over finding solutions for problems. I’ve talked repeatedly about how we repeatedly look to the idea of authority to fix every ill.

I’ve written a little about what a colossal failure the state response was to October’s historic floods–from Kamla’s canoe and curry to Stuart’s politicking. About how underprepared we (and our phones) are for a natural disaster if God gives up his citizenship. What I didn’t write about here was the most painful example of this. A media house gave its airwaves to Diego Martin Regional Corporation chair councillor Susan Hong, after broadcasting footage of the Diego Martin River beginning to crest its banks in a few places, asking what guidance she wanted to share with affected burgesses. Hong’s message was: don’t throw your fridge in the river. Thankfully, in Greenvale especially, people rose selflessly and imaginatively to the occasion where politicians and the protective services did not, and their efforts are responsible for preventing lives being lost.

What I will take into 2019 is from Anil Boodan, Thaddeus Caraballo, Selwyn Carrington, Nathaniel De Roche, Avinash Deonarine, Akeil Gabriel, Derron Joe-Howard and Jervin Patel–whom Newsday named, though I am sure there are unsung others–who have given me confidence that we still have the capacity to break rules and to find solutions when it matters most. Also the faith that if God isn’t, there will still be Trinis.

The calypsonian laureate. I did write about Kyle Hernandez, Marcus Millette and all the other young spoken-word poets who are the answer to the stale inquiry “Where calypso gone?” But I dared not write more than a line about the greatness of Winston Bailey’s writing. I may have done better than his own flesh and blood, though, who discounted its importance, foregrounding his powerful legacy as a musician. But Shadow’s work so thoroughly exemplifies my “one rule” for calypso–to be remembered.

What I will take into 2019 are two new Shadow memories. One, thanks to Funny’s bravery with Modern Housewives, is of a smut being sung in a funeral. The second is of Mr Shak raising the pores of the grandstand with “Soucou-soucou-soucou-soucou-soucou-soucou-soucounya.”

Love. I’ve written this year about what love means, about the Christian men who gave me dignity as a youth. But as someone whose work is about the liberty to love, I talk far more about heartbreak and grieving, and rarely about giddiness and joy.

So I’m thrilled and thankful to JAy, in whose company I will, surprisingly, bring in 2019, and who inspired this “things to take into the new year” list, which will continue in the coming weeks’ columns.