Linda E. Edwards
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Author: Linda E. Edwards
Released 30 May 2004
Linda Edwards
Photograph by Aramco ExPats
Although I have called the USA home for the better part of the last thirty-five years, I consider myself a Caribbean woman also, specifically, a Trinbagonian. Our country is not Trinidad, but Trinidad and Tobago. It is to that place of my birth that I go when the roots of my soul need watering, when all of the noise and tumult of modern living, the chaos of violence, gets too much for my spirit. My family can document having been there since 1815, as free landholders.
t lesser times of stress, I retreat to my back garden, a small wooded plot in Houston, Texas; that I have converted into a little bit of the islands. Here, among the banana stools, bougainvilleas, bachelor’s buttons, canna lilies, chrysanthemums, hibiscuses, lady’s slippers, vervain and sugar cane, I can bid one day goodbye or greet the morning of another. My garden backs up on a bit of woodland, called a greenbelt in Texas, and my house projects further into my yard than do my neighbors’, so I can sit on my back patio, among the trees, and read or write.
Sometimes, as in the aftermath of a recent storm, the mosquitoes have a lot to say about who occupies the back yard. I always lose that argument.
Lest you think that my garden is wholly tropical, let me hasten to say that I have five silver maples, two imperial crab-apples, six rose bushes, six crape myrtles, Rose of Sharons and lots of white ginger lilies whose night perfume turns my lot into a French perfumery. Last year I added two Chrysler Imperial rose bushes, one a memorial to my dog, Midnight, and one a memorial for a friend of more than forty years. Among all these ornamentals, I grow mint, dill and other herbs that go from lot to pot, full of flavor.
In my first years in Houston, I tried hydrangeas, but the hot sand killed them off, and my snowbush stubbornly stayed put for five years, then died too; so I learned to plant what will grow here, as Lady Bird Johnson said, explaining why she did not plant a live oak on the White House grounds. My stubborn streak started a peony in a pot this year.
In terms of latitude, Houston is halfway between Trinidad and Delaware, my previous home state in the US, and hydrangeas grow in both those places. Nonetheless, I am happy with the blend of tropical and temperate plants that I could bring to bloom in my garden. They get along quite well, and could give a symbolic lesson to people of different cultures. They feed off the same dirt, air, water and sunshine. The birds and insects are friends with them all, as was my dog. The neighbor’s cats are not welcome. Birds nest in my crabapples.
Coin of Gold was my first published novel, but the third of three I have written. The second, The Sun, The Snow, The Sea was written before that but I wanted to revise it towards perfection. I think I have.
I have been writing all my life, essays, poetry and novels. I sold many essays to Caribbean newspapers, and have published in The Trinidad Express, The Trinidad Guardian, Newsday (Trinidad), USAFRICA Online, Trindiary.com and Caribbean Contact. I am currently retyping my first novel, written in 1972, which won the Trinidad and Tobago First Prize in International Book Year. I would like to offer it for publication, without changing anything, except that the thirty year-old paper is crumbling.
I earn my living as a teacher of English. I have taken time off once and done other things. For thirteen years I worked at various jobs, high school administrator, corporate trainer, public relations officer; and for two years, trainer in an international family planning organization. I have come back to teaching. It is the home of my intellectual heart, as it combines the things I love to do, and earning a living. Sometimes, the administrivia I must overcome in order to teach gets me irritated.
On the streets of Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago’s capital city, I could run into Derek Walcott (Nobel, 1992) or Myrle Hodge well known writers whose writings have been nurtured by my sun-blest islands. V. S. Naipaul too, (Nobel 2001) is from there, although I think he would have preferred to be from somewhere else.
In my classroom, I try to nurture future writers, who, when they get tired of being computer technicians, will turn again to the enormously satisfying feeling of putting words together on a page, having them make sense, and having others say that they enjoyed reading them.
The Thing I would like people to know most about me: In my mature years, I strive for harmony in all parts of my being, including my work. My favorite lines are Khalil Gibran’s “Love in Work”. I try to infuse all things I do with the spirit of my being, and I know that my ancestors, the blessed dead, are standing around and applauding. It is this harmony that allows the universe to make sense, and allows me to continue to believe in love.
This current work, The Sun, The Snow, The Sea exemplifies my love in work, and belief in love’s enduring grace.
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