My blogger friend Olga has just returned from St. Martin where she got to experience carnival for the first time. The colors and the people in her photographs are so familiar and gorgeous and vibrantly alive to me, in scenes that play out up and down the emerald arc of Caribbean islands each year. Jamaica has recently finished its carnival. Trinidad's world-class celebration was the month before. Antigua is just gearing up for its carnival at the end of July. As I call back the body memory of dancing all night and road marching all day, as I daydream the sounds of steel pans and colorful costumes and the wildly festive atmosphere, I imagine playing mas at a carnival next year. Mas, by the way, is short for masquerade, the riotous displays of paint and feathers and glitter and beads and baubles that capture the jubilation of the road march. I hope Olga will forgive my reposting one of her pictures because I just can't get over the intensity, the explosive joy of the red in this picture. I think I've never truly seen the color red before.
And they say female birds are plain.
ReplyDeleteSimply Gorgeous. m.
Glorious!!!
ReplyDeleteit would seem that the blogger issues of the last few days = all my comments yesterday disappearing.
grrr....
In the end... it was love coming your way. awe at your writing, your family, your soul. This photo? It feels like a part of your soul that yearns to dance.
Dance , Angella. Dance.
Thank you very much for being so kind as to re-post my photo. It makes me happy to see that you liked it so much. I will wait for a little while, and, if it won't be restored, I will put up my post about the carnival another time.
ReplyDeleteWow, what beautiful this. I'd love to hear about you playing mas next year, go! play!
ReplyDeleteCuriously, I had deleted this post, because I worried that I hadn't asked Olga's permission to post her stunning photograph. But Blogger put it back up during its Friday the 13th service outage, and so I have decided to let it stay, since Olga has now given me her permission.
ReplyDeleteThank you Olga! I hope you do put back up your fabulous carnival post. How strange that Blogger returned this post to me while deleting the source of it, which obviously predated it. Weird.
Mark, all that plumage.
Deb, I do yearn to dance! I did see all your comments yesterday and wish I had had a chance to answer them. You have the most generous and loving soul. Dance with me!
Dierdre, maybe I will!