Making Music and Memories at the Legacy House

Tonight was a night full of good energy. We spent tonight at Leroy Clarke’s house with some wonderful people including our professors, Sunity Best, Earl Lovelace, Leroy Clarke, Muhammad Muwakil, Sean Thomas, Rubadiri Victor, and other guests. It felt so good to be back at the Legacy House once again and based off of our first experience, I knew that the night would bring big things. And it did. Dr. P, Dr. B, Sean, Muhammad, and Rubadiri got their groove on and the music that was happened was magical. Everything fell together so smoothly and everyone could feel the joy that it created. While we jammed to the music we ate up the homemade snacks from Sunity, sipped on Mr. Clarke’s favorite beverage, and enjoyed the company. At one point, while admiring Leroy’s works in progress, he let us make our mark on his masterpieces. Almost all of us got to pick up a brush and add some dots or dashes where he directed us. It was an honor to know that Leroy Clarke trusted and respected all of us enough to paint on his work. And we did a mighty fine job I might add.
During one of the songs, “I Remember”, the song we picked up from the Women in Calypso night and sang everyday during classes, all of us joined in to sing the song. Normally at 8:30 am when we sang that song in class it was mediocre; no one was fully awake and some of us maybe didn’t feel like singing some of the days, but it was a different story tonight. Everyone was into it and I knew because I could feel it, I could feel the effort that everyone put into singing the song and we all had our own moments with the song and it came out better than it had ever sounded, hands down. It was
after that song, during the following song that was totally vibing that I had a long moment in which I was overwhelmed by the desire to have that night go on forever, to stay in Trinidad with the amazing people we had met and with each other. I looked around the room to everyone and for every person I felt a warm feeling of affection, even the guests who I didn’t know well or even at all. But for the people I knew, it made me realize how amazing it has been to spend this time with them and share everything that we have experienced during the trip. I also watched the professors in their zone, in the music, and I saw a side I hadn’t seen before really and it made me appreciate them in a different way. It was a great moment and I know that it will stick with me for a long time. I left the Legacy House tonight feeling so satisfied in a way that only good people, good music, and good times can leave you and I know that I left a part of me in the Legacy House, all of us did. We were all a part of a legacy tonight, that of Leroy Clarke’s and our own.