"Soon Reach"

There are two kinds of distance in Jamaica. The one you see on a map and the one a country person tells you.

As children, visits to Grandma Mary in Portland were everything. Beach days. Roast fish by the seaside. Breadfruit turning slowly over hot coals.The kind of food that didn’t just fill you. it stayed with you. But every visit came with something else.

A walk.

Because when you reach country, you don’t just stay in the yard.

You go “round.” You visit neighbors. You check cousins. You stop by places that are always described the same way:

“Just up the road.”

My sister and I would start out full of energy, ready for whatever adventure lay ahead.

Five minutes in:

“Grandma… soon reach?”

“Yes man… just up the road.”

Ten minutes later:

“Grandma… how far again?”

“Not far, chile. Just a likkle further.”

The road keeps climbing.

The sun gets hotter.

Our steps get slower.

“Grandma… you sure we soon reach?”

“Yes man… right up so.”

What felt like hours later…

we finally arrive.

One cousin.

And just when we start to relax…

“Come, we go check Aunt Punse now. She just down the road.”

That is the moment you learn a very important Jamaican truth:

Never ask a country person for distance. “Just a stone’s throw away” can mean anything from five minutes to a full afternoon walk.

And just when you think you understand the road, night starts to fall.

And suddenly—

“There’s a shorter way.”

But somewhere along those long uphill walks, between the asking and the waiting, the complaining and the laughter.  something else was happening.

You were learning the land.

Learning the people.

Learning that time, in places like this, moves differently.

And even now…

If someone says,

“Yeah man, just up the road…”

You don’t argue. You just smile, because you already know.