From the desk of
FRANCES-MARIE COKE
From the desk of
FRANCES-MARIE COKE
by Frances-Marie Coke
In the words of
FRANCES-MARIE COKE
How I got here...
Meet Frances-Marie Coke
Jamaican Writer and Educator
Like many of us, I got here after a long circuitous road , dotted with combinations of strong family and cultural influences, good and shaky decisions, and blessed passages through periods of loss, development, failure, achievement, and many bouts of being lost and found.
Frances-Marie Coke
Jamaican Writer and Educator
Like many Jamaican children we were born to struggling young
Parents in Kingston and taken “to country” to Grandma by
the river or Grandma by the sea to help “bring us up the right and
proper way.” As for me, the journeys took me over and through the hills and curves of the Junction Road from Kingston to Port Maria.
That was the beginning of numerous hair-raising rides in cars and country buses around the perilous corners bordering on the crashing waves. It was my route to seaside jaunts and sundry corners of old houses in Idlewild and then Galina (a few corners up the road). In those corners too, I discovered the world of reading, poring through every kind of book I could find—their pages cracking and yellow with age.
All around were the women of linen and altar cloths; women my grandmother shepherded as they gathered and dried the fronds of the sea palms, plaiting miles of yellowing straw, dressing their children for Sunday school, making life on the edge of an island teetering onto the depths of the sea.
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And everywhere, there were stories… stories at Church and Miss Palmer’s infant school; stories at meetings of women and young girls on the edge of disaster, stories in every nook of the wraparound veranda – stories that made me certain I would find a safe place between the covers of books as I headed to Kingston and the turbulence of adolescence and high school.
I started out strong and then fell off the rails, assaulted by bouts of confusion and silence that put me in some of my teachers’ bad books and outside the principal’s door—until she came along—a teacher of English in fourth form, who grabbed me and wouldn’t let go for fear I would be swallowed up in my own surly world.
And at last, I believed – I had stories too, not just to read but to tell
So I wrote.
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Of course, there was more school and then work…more school and more work. And the ins and outs of love and everyday life, taking me across the world and the years until now.
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And there were numerous people – many still here – who loved and supported, who showed the way and cared enough to be patient; who guided and mentored, pushing and pulling me every step of the way.
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Guidance and good fortune played strong roles. Thankfully, I weathered the worst times and capitalized on the best, landing on my feet, with generous servings of most of what I need to get by.
And today I write because… well… because I just have to!
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