03 Jul NiteCap Journal: Where Do the Elders Go?

As far I see it Nin is still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. 

Her olive skin glowed, mirroring honey as sweet as her spirit, accentuated by long jet-black hair complimenting her angelic frame.

When I held her hand and peered into her eyes, I felt the magic I often write about, an all-consuming gravity weighing down those drawn to history.

As she laid in bed unable to speak, the twinkle in her eye told me she was happy to see me to.

After all, my great great-aunt Nin was 98 years old and my first crush. 

I was either 7 or 8 years old and my first time in Anguilla, my mother’s home before migrating to St. Croix and finally St. Thomas. Like many Anguillians my mother left as a teen due to the poverty that led to the Anguilla Revolution in 1967 resulting in Anguilla becoming the world’s smallest Republic for the time being. Led by Ronald Webster, my relatives on the island’s East End forced the hand of a superpower. 

Hence, blame the Anguilla connection for my belligerence in the face of injustice. 

The migration of Anguillians and other Eastern Caribbean immigrants to the US Virgin Islands during the 50s and early 60s helped to build the territory into the modern industrialized society it is today. 

Growing up I always heard stories about Nin as her beauty was a thing of legend. Her features resembled those of the indigenous people who first settled the Caribbean. There were even talk of men doing unimaginable things to win her favor. Back then the powerful took advantage of the poor void of consequence so Nin’s beauty was both her gift and her curse.

So sis please consider me an ally in your fight, but I pray it doesn’t come at the cost of forever dividing us, led by those who planted all these seeds of division in the first place. 

As I walked the winding dirt path to the small cabin where Nin stayed on the White Hill, cared for by my cousins, I imagined how her life must have been. In all honesty, it wasn’t the tales of Nin’s beauty that drew me to her, but her age. Although she never had biological kids, she raised many as her own.

She was the eldest in my bloodline and I’ve always had a reverence for old age. As a curious little kid, I used to conjure up my own theories on life. If you lived past 70 it meant the big guy up in the sky likes you. 

As I got older, I now know that my admiration for what comes before me may stem from something more fragile and of a personal nature. 

Understanding from early on this will all end someday I’ve always been pre-occupied, sometimes to a fault, of ensuring I live forever if not in the flesh in the energy left in these written words and extended work. 

It’s why I find it a travesty that my generation and the ones coming after me seem to disregard legacy in a growing need to market life instead of cultivating it. 

Today is Emancipation Day in the USVI, the day we broke free of Danish slavery, considered among the most savage of slavers. On this day in 1848, Moses “General Buddhoe” Gottlieb led the revolt that ultimately led to emancipation in the Danish West Indies which would eventually become the US Virgin Islands after the United States purchased our islands from Denmark in 1917.

Yet, I’ll bet my bottom dollar the average VI millennial is unaware of this monumental date in history or doesn’t give a damn, leaving them void of the ancestral magic that helped us to weather tragedy – both natural and manmade.

My mother turned 79 last week and I assure you the advice she gives is derived from divine wisdom unearthed by age and experience.  

In Paradise Discovered: The Unbreakable Virgin Islanders 2.0 when asked about emojis one millennial explained, “That’s the way we speak in this age.” 

I cringed inside.

We’re experiencing the greatest generational shift seen in my lifetime as technology and access to it has helped to further the divide between young and old. 

With all the fanfare surrounding millennials the USVI and America has actually gotten older with a record 46 million people over 65, due in large part to the advancements in medicine that are helping people live longer, according to recent data from the Pew Research Center.

However, one-third of seniors say they never use the internet and 49 percent of them say they don’t have home broadband services. The number of those who own smartphones is 42 percentage points lower than their younger counterparts. 

It makes me wonder if those coming after me will ever get to experience Nin’s beauty, unlike the often shallow and naked representation showcased on my timeline, her beauty spoke to my soul.  

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