It only took five steps, five humongous steps, if you were a kid, and then, you were there. A wide open space filled with the scent of rotting plums and apples, the sweet juicy nectar of a sticky East Indian mango, the salty taste of the ocean on your lips, squishy mud beneath your feet, dogs barking, crickets chirping, chickens clucking. It was also the school yard and the grocery. It was The Place of Dreams, our Secret Kingdom. We were the sole rulers – by daytime anyway. This was Our Domain – The Back Yard.

     As kids, my two sisters and I were never bored. Once we left the verandah’s steps, we were no longer home. We had somehow entered a new dimension where an old pimento tree became the bank. Lower branches hung bare – leaves stripped and used as our local currency. We were never without money to buy the necessities for our homes and our many children (our dolls).

     Beneath the huge East Indian mango tree was the school. Here our tattered dolls were propped up against the tree while we went to ‘work’ in the bushes nearby. (Somehow lizards never scared me then. I never really realized how many large, green lizards lived in that tree until I was much older).

     Later, after collecting the children from school, we would go ‘home’. Home was a straggly-looking guava tree to the right of the Back Yard. It was the only tree we could manage to climb into without falling from it and it also supported the three of us with our dolls quite well. It was the perfect ‘house’ as it was always laden with delicious fruit which served as breakfast and dinner. Life couldn’t have been any better. While we sat here, the cooing of pigeons in the plum tree towering above us would relax us or the screeching of noisy Blackbirds (Cling Cling) would be considered as rowdy neighbors who would from time to time disturb the peace.

     Once in a while, a dog would stop by to drink from the water pan beneath the tree. They could be deemed ferocious beasts or scary monsters depending on the game of the day. If we were really quiet, we would hear the chickens clucking and catch parts of a stray conversation stolen by the wind. The wind had lots of associates with whom we were very familiar: the sweet smell of fruits mingled together with the hot summer’s sun, the funky smell of unwashed dogs jumping at you. There was also the unpleasant odor of the chicken house which never failed to keep the wind’s company.