Seven Treasures, part 16: guest post by Shivaun Hearne

SHIVAUN HEARNE has managed the editorial and production department of the University of the West Indies Press since 2000. She was born in England, raised in Jamaica, and educated in Jamaica and Canada. She lives in Toronto.

 

 

 

1.

My charm bracelet. This is, admittedly, a bit of a cheat in this list, holding as it does twenty-six treasures. But it is my most prized possession and the thing that contains my history and connects me to most of my beloved ones, living and dead. I don’t wear it as much as I’d like to because I fear losing one of the charms, but even the ones I’ve lost (including one that was miraculously found) have a story.

The short version of the charm bracelet tale is that it was my mother’s. About fifteen years ago, before charm bracelets became popular again (the whole Pandora fad), and for reasons unknown to me, I declared I needed a chunky charm bracelet and my mum had this tucked away in her drawer. I don’t remember ever having seen it in my childhood forages into her jewellery drawer, but it appeared when I needed it and it was perfect. From the unknown Sophie’s charm recalling the 1884 Cotton Expo in New Orleans,  to my uncle Chris’s engraved infant-sized St. Christopher medal (a christening present), to the increasingly clever vintage charms I seek out and that my husband, Kevin, manages to find, this has become the portal to my story.

2.

My Canadian citizenship card. It may seem an odd treasure, but it’s small and portable, and despite my entitlement to two other citizenships, Canada is the country that embodies who I am and the citizenship I embrace with pride. I was born in England and raised, from the age of six months, in Jamaica. And I love both countries. England, to me, is a sense of family — it was my mother’s country, despite the fact that she spent most of the last sixty years of her life in Jamaica, and the country of most of my small family. I feel a sense of connection, but I lived there with one eye always on the door, never really at peace. An island of myriad delights, it is, ultimately, a country that breaks my heart and a place where I cannot live as I would like. And so, Canada: my country of chance.

When I was seventeen and looking at universities abroad, I was wisely advised by a family friend to consider Canada because tuition fees were lower here than in the U.S. When I saw that tuition was lower still for citizens, my father’s long-forgotten Canadian birth certificate suddenly became significant. He had long since claimed his Jamaican citizenship and always travelled on that passport. He had in fact been dismissive of the accident of his birth here, partly because he loved Jamaica fiercely, but I think partly, too, because it was tied to a family “shame”: his mother had left his father while pregnant, to join her sister who was working in Montreal. I didn’t realize until years later that their marriage certificate is dated November 25, 1925, and my father was born February 4, 1926. Do the math. My grandfather travelled to Montreal in 1928 to bring his family home, and so my father was raised in Jamaica.

A month before my eighteenth birthday (after which the process would become more complicated), I hied myself off to the Canadian High Commission to claim my citizenship to a country I had only ever seen from the inside of airports, en route to England.

When I came here for university in 1985, because I entered as a Canadian citizen I had none of the orientation for international students: that meant sudden and full immersion. After an odd first few years, I found my feet and made some wonderful friends and the first roots of connection to the country took hold. I stayed until 1990 and then returned to Jamaica, intending to remain there only a year. That year turned into fifteen.

On a visit to Toronto in October 2004, I was struck with the feeling “I have to be here.” Six months later, I was living here once again, ostensibly for a year — but I knew already that it would be forever. And then, I met a Canadian man who felt like home to me, and is.

3.

The Offering. I bought this painting the day after my mother’s funeral in 2009. We went to the opening of an exhibition by a friend in Jamaica, Lisa Lindo. I had seen this work on the invitation and fell in love with it, and when we arrived it was one of the few pieces that hadn’t sold yet. I was with a dear friend, who suggested I buy it in memory of my mother. The fact that I had just that day received an unexpected cheque from the Jamaican government (for funeral costs for a pensioner) in the amount of the price of the painting made it seem like kismet. I bought it even before I had a wall to hang it on. When we moved into our house, there was a nail in just the right spot in the living room, and that’s where it hangs to this day.

4.

The key to our house. I have dreamed of owning a house for as long as I can remember. As a child I would read the real estate classifieds and imagine living in the places described there. Now, having a place of our own, one that feels permanent — as much as these things can be so —  is a source of great joy. And I love the life that my husband and I (and our dog, Alice) have built here since 2010. I work from home, and I have yet to tire of these walls. (Admittedly, Scotiabank is the real owner of the house, and I accept that we are merely renting from them, but the bank is a less capricious landlord than an individual who could decide to sell at any time.) More than wanting a house, though, I want this to be a home away from home for my family of friends, a sanctuary of the sort I have known through the kindness of others. And the unexpected bonus is that we live in a wonderful neighbourhood with lovely neighbours, some of whom have become close friends: I have a sense of community, of connection to a place, of belonging.

5.

My wedding ring. Kevin and I met in 2006 and lived together for years before we got married. He proposed a few years ago but I knew I didn’t want a traditional wedding or ring, and as a joke I said, “Whittle me a ring out of wood from the cottage.” Obviously that wouldn’t work, but I got a bee in my bonnet about having a ring that incorporated wood. On Etsy.com we found a wonderful company, Minter & Richter Designs, that uses a process of stabilizing wood and setting it in titanium to make a virtually indestructible ring. We sent them black walnut from a tree at the cottage and they made exactly the rings we wanted. We got married in September 2010.

6.

The Cottage Logs. These journals are a record of our life together at the Far Side, our off-the-grid cottage on a pristine lake, and perhaps the most pure and special place I have ever known. Kevin had bought the cottage a few years before we met, and it’s where we really fell in love. We can be completely cut off from the outside world (other than CBC radio, my eighth treasure), and be absolutely at peace together on this extraordinary piece of the Canadian Shield. We started the logs in 2007, intending them to be a record of temperatures and weather conditions, wildlife sightings, and daily activities, but over the years they’ve become so much more. Guests add entries too, and even when our notes are almost illegible, the process of deciphering them brings memories flooding back.

7.

My iPhone. The first one, I mean. The one that was actually an eyePhone. This was a Christmas present from Kev, before either of us even had iPods and when iPhones had just come out, and I had declared, “No i-ANYTHING for Christmas. We can’t afford it.” So he made me the eyePhone, which I thought was hilarious and clever. We both got iPhones a couple of years later and that was life-changing, of course — but my first eyePhone will always be special.