A tin can of diamonds.

Sat.16.Nov.24.

Last Sunday, I wrote about treasures and, as usual, writing or reading sends me along this side street in my mind. I stare at small objects, knock on doors, open thoughts, ideas. Writing about treasures, I stumbled upon a memory…

…my mother and the tin can of diamonds.

Our conversation went like this:

“I had a strange dream the other night,” me mother announce.

Whenever me mother tell me she get a strange dream, a li’l fretting does quiver-up inside o’ me. I never know if is a good dream or a bad dream, and if it gon come true. Or not.

“I dream that I been digging up some place and I find a tinnin-cup full o’ uncut diamonds. And I thinking, what I would do with all that money. Then I think about how much people I can help.”

“Man, look, just lemme know where them diamonds buried and I gon show you wha’ to do with all that money,” I say.

(This is from my book, Big Ole Home By De Sea, where I explore treasures found around the home and within the self.)

Down the side street I go again. Another door, another thought. What would I do if I had an endless supply of diamonds at my disposal? Would I live like the people on the island of Krakatoa in the book The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pène du Bois? They kept themselves isolated so that no outsiders would learn about the trove of diamonds on Krakotoa.

What would’ve happened if they’d told outsiders about the massive amount of diamonds that could be picked up on the island? I imagine the chaos of greed, power, fear that would’ve descended on Krakatoa and in the communities off the island. But then, if the diamonds were to disappear due to natural disasters, everyone on and off Krakatoa would lose.

To share or not to share. How do we resolve this? What if there’s an endless supply of diamonds within me…my thoughts, ideas, knowledge, what should I do with them? Should I keep them to myself? How do I balance sharing and protecting my interests?

I must read Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.