It really struck me today that while I do seem to be a lot more spiritual than religious, per se, that there is absolutely no doubt that I am very, very superstitious. I don’t give it much thought because it has always been intrinsic to my life. Without a doubt, it is a lasting remnant of my upbringing. My Irish grandmother was Roman Catholic and pragmatic. My Caribbean grandmother was Episcopalian, then Roman Catholic. From neither was religion forthcoming. It was from the latter that the superstitions came into play. From the poultices that I wore around my neck to ward off illness and evil spirits to the reading of tea leaves to the repetition of words or phrases to the knowledge that my father appears in found pennies and my mother is seen keeping watch as a hawk in the passing trees … all of these deep-seated beliefs walk with me every single day … from saying goodbye in gratitude to a car that kept us safe to saying “I love you, stay safe” each time a love one leaves the house to saying, “Thank You, God” upon turning into the neighborhood after a ride. I suppose, on some level, each of these is a prayer but mostly each is a superstition learned by a child at the knee of a beloved grandmother. I wouldn’t give one of them up for all the tea in Trinidad. They say home is where the heart is. If that is true, my home is filled with palm trees, beaches, and a city called Couva that was once where my great-grandfather, Robert Nesbit Bryce, owned a sugar cane plantation …