I fried sweet plantain, and it reminded me of Haiti. And that, yes, I can write my ass off.

Defeated from trying too hard with writing, I made lunch instead. And, as God would have it, the words finally came.

I had such a remarkably difficult time writing earlier today.

Almost as difficult as talking myself off Anixety’s ledge first thing in the morning when it told me all hope was lost and there was nothing I could do but wait for someone to save me. From what? Oh, that thing. The thing we’re all scared of: uncertainty. The thing I always reassure you is NOT the enemy, but is, in fact, the waiting room we sit in before we’re called into our next great thing.

My God. I gave myself such a hard time…

It seems I have not learned that the minute I wake up with too strong an agenda as a way to quiet my morning anxiety, I simply end up feeding my ego with reasons for it to look forward to telling me, “See? I told you so. You are no good.”

It’s a lie. I’m better than I think.

But despite me knowing that, it’s as if I have to also know that I’m not the best, because I still strive to be. Deep deep down, while I know my imperfection is my blessing, I’m not sure yet how to let my idea of perfection go. My faux compass.

So I drove myself crazy because that makes more sense.

I told my anxiety to shaddap, stretched my body awake, took a shower, drank my vitamins, put make-up on, ate breakfast, and headed over to my favorite coffee shop. I got there, set up my workstation, bought my favorite cold brew, and opened up the document. I! WAS GOING! TO WRITE!

…and I did. For about six or seven sentences, I was doing it. Until something I wanted to say was getting lost in translation on its way from my brain to the page, and I panicked.

Panic is natural! Sure…

…except I’m tired of doing it. It’s annoying as hell, to place so much expectation on a piece of work that hasn’t had the chance to breathe. It’s like you being very upset at your newborn for not knowing how to talk right after the doctor’s pulled your bundle of joy out of you. It’s insidious, to be so cruel.

I can’t help it, though. I’d like to, I’d like to treat my writing like the darling she is. I’ve been writing since I was 10 years old and it’s always seemed like the thing I was meant to do. But, the stakes are severely higher now. I have a purpose, y’know? It’s a responsibility. And I wish I didn’t cave under that every single time the cursor blinks.

---

After about two hours of trying/failing, I packed my things and went home.

It’s been a beautiful day, I’ll mention. Daylight Savings, as dumb as it is, has given the sun more time with us. I am grateful.

As I walk home, I think about lunch… what I feel like eating.

And how bad I need to pee, lol.

I get into my apartment, and I’m comforted by the beauty of my home. I can’t believe I’ve constructed a playground for myself, where I can always be creative. Color, plant life, reminders of identity, and the smell of vanilla lavender silence all of the anxiety I had earlier. I walk into my kitchen, and sitting on top of my air fryer is the ripest sweet plantain I’ve ever seen.

I bought it last week and left it there to get darker. I’d wake up, cook, leave the house, and come back every day, its metamorphosis staring back at me as it went from a deep yellow with streaks of blackness to what you see above: BLACK.

“She’s ready,” I told myself. I placed the plantain on my cutting board; it was fragile. So soft when I lifted it, I was scared it was too ripe. But I grabbed my knife and sliced through the top to peer inside, and I saw that it was the perfect color. She was ready.

I texted the picture above to a friend who, about a month or two ago, attempted to make sweet plantain at home and was upset it wasn’t soft nor sweet the way she knew West Indians cook it (she’s Black American, so plantain is not a cuisine staple, but she loves them). She had hit me up for my expertise, and I asked:

“How black was the peel?”

“Ehh… still yellow.” She said. “ I cooked it in coconut oil. Like, right now, I’m snacking on the plantains like chips. They’re crisp, lol.”

“They needed to be riper, girl. I was not kidding when I said them hoes gotta be black.”

“In other words, you’re saying you damn near need to attract fruit flies in your house for the perfect plantain?” she asked, highly entertained.

“PRECISELY,” I replied with enthusiasm, not joking in the slightest bit, lol.

When I sent her the picture above, I told her this was what I meant so she never got confused again. She replied: “Fruit fly black.”

I peeled the blackness off and saw all the ways a plantain is different from a banana, though they reside in the same family. A banana when exceptionally ripe is utter mush. Taking it out of its peel, you’ve got the mushiest corpse in your hand. Press it down with a fork a few times, and you’ve got baby food. No effort. Plantain, though, has some sturdiness to her, despite the softness. There’s a stickiness when you remove the peel. Like it was still doing the job of protecting the body, which was still very much alive. When you hold the plantain in your hand as I did, you can feel her. At her ripest, she is beautiful. Her scent is pungent. You’re excited because this might be her at her best.

This scent transports me back to New Orleans. I talk about this city a lot, because I belong to her. I will forever belong to that city. I will never forget it as my first second home, where I discovered my independence. I remembered the place I subletted for a month and a half, a little 500-square-foot bungalow in the center of a plantain forest. I remember my Haitian Uber driver pulling up when dropping me home one day and stepping out of the car in slow motion when she saw all the plantain that remained untouched, hanging from their trees.

“You can feed a whole neighborhood with all of those plantains! [The owner] of the house doesn’t want them?” she asked me in Haitian Creole.

I shrugged, gathering my things inside but stopping to marvel at the trees as she was. I didn’t understand that, in her eyes, she had just struck gold. “I don’t think so…” I replied.

She looked so amazed. I watched her watch them, and I felt comforted by the fate of this moment. This woman was the first Haitian I met who lived in New Orleans. I had come to live here in search of us within this city, because I knew our impact here and was writing a story about it. But word was that there were barely any Haitians that still lived here. I was hopeful, though.

And, as God would have it, one would be my Uber driver. And she would pick up a Haitian-American girl far from home one afternoon as a hurricane was preparing to land, and bring her to a plantain forest.

And this girl, seeing how important this was to the woman, would say, “You want to take some home?”

The Haitian woman looked at me with excitement. She couldn’t believe her ears. Mind you, this was not my home. But I’ve learned that white people will have a fruit tree in their yard and not eat from it, some believing that you… can’t…? Very strange. So I nodded. “Why not? They’re just hanging here.”

Her eyes widened to match the smile that stretched over her face. “Do you have a machete?!”

I cut the plantain into round pieces and aligned them around my plate.

I purchased some ghee from the farmer’s market the weekend before that I was excited to use for the frying. And some salmon that I defrosted yesterday for my protein. A bag of fresh spinach stared at me when I opened the fridge to get my fixins, so I decided that would be my greens; I’d sautee those.

I brought up New Orleans because that wonderful Haitian woman didn’t know it, but she granted me permission to eat from that tree, too. I had never made sweet plantain before. And the fact that they were just hanging outside my window... I mean. The opportunity was too good.

When she had cut them down and left with four bags of almost forty plantains, she cut some for me to have, and told me to wait for the less ripe ones to ripen, for they’ll weigh the branch down to cut from. That evening, I called my mom to help me.

“Just peel it, cut it, and fry it!” She said. Like it was nothing.

“That’s it? You sure?” I asked, completely skeptical and afraid to fuck up.

“Cynthia, yes. How black is the peel?”

“Almost black.”

“Then it’s ready. Peel, cut, fry. And, if you want, put the plantain on paper towel so it soaks the excess oil. That’s all, baby.”

It was that simple, as most things are. And when I did it, I was so hyyyyype. Look at me, eating from a damn TREE. Farm to table! In New Orleans! Lol. Haiti had indeed found me.

I took a picture and texted it to her when it was done. “THERE YOU GO!” She replied back. “That’s it!”

Fast forward to today, and after seasoning my fish and laying it over the hot ghee that blanketed the pan, I aligned the sweet plantain around it. It was a sizzle fest. Oh, do I love to hear the sizzle. Watch the magic happen as the heat transforms this gem of the land into nourishment for my appetite. Microscopic bubbles form around the circumference, the fish and plantain dancing in place as the bubbles pop.

Something comes over me. Maybe it was the smell of the food, the comfort of my home, the 2pm sunshine radiating through my windows, or the memories of Haiti by way of New Orleans, but I needed music.

I put on the late Toto Bissainthe, a well-known Haitian actress and singer of the mid to late 1900s. Her music centers Haitian folk songs inspired by Vodou, Haiti’s foundational religion, and her sound reminds me of a life I never lived. I play her album, “Chante Haiti (Haitian Songs),” from 1977, and remain in the confines of the track, “Papa Loko (what you hear playing in the video above).”

The drums summon a rhythm in my body that grounds me. The guitar keeps my spirits high and in harmony with whatever is around. The grain of the music’s quality from its old age humbles me. But most importantly, the lyrics…

TRANSLATION:
Papa Loko, you are the wind, push us on our way.
We are butterflies. We will bring word to Agwe (ocean spirit).
And everything that speaks good, my eyes are.
And everything that speaks bad, my eyes are.

Papa Loko, you are the wind.
You will push us on our way, we are butterflies.
We will bring news to Agwe
Papa Loko, bring words of us. Words, Papa Loko
We will bring word to Agwe
Butterflies! The road is long, we will bring our word.
Butterflies! The road is long, we will bring our word…

Papa Loko is of major significance to Haitian Vodou, for he is the “father/patron of all priests.” His powers come from nature, communication, and healing, and it’s mentioned that his symbol is the butterfly: “He can turn into the wind to listen to conversations. (x)”

I don’t practice vodou, nor was I raised in it. But I love to learn about its depths, because Western society, as well as Christianity, has forced us to turn away from a hefty portion of our culture that resides here, in this religion, and I love to learn about the truth. I listen to Haitian folk songs as a way to get closer to a place I can barely visit. A land that’s sunken in insecurity and turmoil because its resources make it the richest.

I text my mom that I’m listening to Toto. “How do you know about her?” she asked. Remember, I was not raised on this.

“I heard her music one day in a video and it made me want to hear more of her work. I love it.”

“Good,” my mom said. “Keep the Haitian blood alive.”

Writing whatever I want is so jarring to me, because it will not come out pretty.

I know this because my journal is the evidence. Chicken scratch and rushed words, I get all of my truth down with no care of how good it sounds because it won’t matter. No one will see this but me.

This place is not my journal, though. When I put in effort, I feel so accomplished. I suddenly feel glad that I slaved away at a piece that reads much prettier than my honesty would allow.

But, then there are days like this, when I force myself to be great when all I need is to be honest, because isn’t that great, too? There are plenty of posts lost within the confines of my memories, brilliant thoughts that will never see the light of day because the time has passed. I could have written them, had I not doubted the strength of imperfection. In my pursuit of beauty and impression, I miss out on the gravity thrown-together words can hold. I diminish my first voice. I silence myself.

I did not wake up with a post like this in mind. When I got to the coffee shop, I had intended to write something completely different and failed.

This one, though? I love this one. I love how it did not take much work to write because I can feel it all and it was excited to get out. I needed this one out. I was eager to share something real, clearly.

Three hours it took to experience and write about how much my culture arms me with the tools to be my greatest self, just like ripe, sweet plantain.

…I guess my ego can suck a fat one, huh?

Thank you for reading, friends!

And if you are new here, thank you for checking out my work. Writing is my life. Who would I be without it? And for every post you enjoy, my purpose is confirmed.

So, once again. Thank you.

If you’d like to read more, here are my most notable pieces:

• The Evidence in Prayer — When the hurt tries to force me to believe I am someone unworthy, my therapist taught me to, “Look for the evidence.” To find the truth in that one voice amongst the choir of lies. Prayer is one way.

• The Beauty of Never Arriving — We treat the journey like something out to get us, all because it’ll be painful. But the journey is not the monster under our beds, the fear is.

• Copy, And Copy Well — "You haven't begun to see a painting until you've copied it." There is liberation in being led until you can ride your bicycle all on your own.

And if you’d like to be a paid subscriber, where the proceeds go to me exploring pockets of the art world and expanding my language in the beauty we bypass every day, click here to upgrade. You will NOT regret it.