brief gleanings on Cuba

Over the last ten years, on nights when I’ve felt lost or alone, I’ve ridden my rusty conch cruiser to the painted compass at White Street Pier and laid myself down in the middle of it, feet pointed south to the country in which my father was born.   Cuba—the forbidden island— because of our political systems that clash and rattle like the summer storms we love, so long as they don’t leave a harmful mark.

My obsession for Cuba came on strong when I moved to Key West.  How could it not?  I was the daughter of an expatriate who tragically, after just two years of marriage to my mother, was exiled from his own mind when schizophrenia slowly swept over him. They divorced.  The end.  But I wanted to know where my family had come from and what exactly I was missing.  I started writing a novel that wove together things that fascinated me:  Keys history and my mysterious ethnicity.  A memoir novella of sorts, named after a Cuban city I liked the sound of:  Cienfuegos, meaning “one hundred fires.”  Like a moth to the flame, I had to go. 

Lucky for me there are loopholes in the legislation that allow for journalists to travel freely regardless of embargoes.  Jump through a few hoops of fire, sign your name on the dotted line, and be sure to have a credible publication sponsor you (thank you Keys Weekly).  Off I went, with three other photojournalists.  Together we piled into a small compact car with our very informed guide (a pilot before Russia fell) and took to taking notes and photos.  We may or may not have delivered some humanitarian goods along the way to those in serious need, or brought letters from local loved-ones to those who stayed or were left behind. I say “may or may not” because while the First Amendment gives me the right to write freely, the Department of Commerce and the Cuban government might have some issues with this.  I stand firm on two feet of ambiguity.

Speaking of the First Amendment, I probably don’t need to remind you that Cuba is the only nation in the Western Hemisphere without freedom of expression, freedom of the press or freedom of assembly.  The government determines where the people can live, work and attend school, restricting them on the outside in a way that becomes oppressive to the inside.  So put away your romantic notions.  Cuba is not all about classic cars and mojitos.  We here in the Keys are reminded of that regularly in the summertime when the glass-calm days create perfect gateways for their 90 mile stretch towards freedom.  Some would rather risk their lives than sit idle or complacent while they quietly suffer. 

But Cuba is also a land of contradictions.  It’s filled with difficult beauty, an inarticulate dissonance and a balance as precarious as it is delicate.  You can’t quite put your finger on it.  You might be better off not trying to. 

There are many that are quite patriotic.  “I love my country,” they’d say, and  “You make the best of it.”  Words that flow easily from the mouths of babes, younger ones fevered with an indelible sense of hope and patience, waiting for the change that seems will never or inevitably come. 


 “A better world is possible,” reads the roadside propaganda in Spanish, revealing the irony that this country is so well versed in.  
 
“You make the best of it,” repeats my 22 year old champion windsurfing friend, celebrated by the government for her big wins one night, spending the next (her birthday) in jail for what police dubbed prostitution (sharing a taxi with two male Estonian kite-surfing friends).  She grimaces and shrugs her shoulders, half laughing, recalling the story.  But then she gets dead serious.  “It’s not easy,” she says.  Another expression I hear throughout my four weeks of exploring.

Politics aside, Cuba did to me what no other place I’ve traveled to has ever done.  More than just a portrait or a story, it made an impact and impression that set my head reeling far beyond images that will continue to play upon my mind as sure as the salt and wind will corrode those Cuban shorelines I could not pull myself away from: 

Cienfuegos—with its steady stream of people leaving the bay, laughing as their sea-soaked swimsuits dried under the late afternoon sun.  The sparkling streets, swept and mopped clean.  Two young boys marching like soldiers at the square amid the Jose Marti park. 

Playa Giron—where the Bay of Pigs went down, now an all-inclusive resort complete with a historic man-made wall blocking off the horizon a hundred yards from the shoreline.   School-children performing “Congejo Alejo,” a much-loved fable of a lost, blind crab in a very large sea. 

Cojimar—Hemingway’s old haunt and launching pad for the Mariel Boat lifts, where I met several who told me of their own attempted crossings and later ate lunch at a table shaped like a whale made by the grandfather of the man and his wife who’d invited me. 

The Malecon in Old Havana—where a thin fisherman whiled the hours away with his Cuban yo-yo in front of mighty Neptune, owning little but himself and the blue bike he rode in on.

“I am a skinny man but I know I am strong,” he says.

And I see it.  The strength is everywhere— the degree in which people hold themselves easily inside their skin, the intensity of their gaze or laughter, the confidence contrasted against an edge of aloof awareness, the patience, the patience, the patience. I notice it and it does something to me that I can’t quite name. 

When I come home, people ask how my trip went but all I can muster up is: “Intense.” I feel rotten for not having had a better time with sweeter stories to report.  Later I realize how that wasn’t the point.  Cuba isn’t Disney World or Greece or Costa Rica and I didn’t go there to be a sleepy traveler, touting tourism or supporting stereotypical preconceptions of the country by riding vintage Cadillacs amid cigar smoke and rum. When I wake up and smell the cafecito, I see how imperative it is that I figure out how to suspend my tendency to want to make sense of suffering or to place order to a world that isn’t always arranged the way I think it should be.  It’s only now that I’m beginning to understand something about Cuba’s collective sense of courage.  That alone can teach a heart to be wiser and know no boundaries.

Now there’s freedom.

Cuba. It’s seared its mark on me.  Weeks, months, even years later, I am certain I will still feel it burning.

"my advice to you is as follows:  one, learn meditation practice; two, empower yourself with your own emotions- don't be afraid of grief, or heartthrob; three, be willing to expose yourself and be a fool, not be intimidated in the presence of presidents and rock stars, but come on as a gentle, living, flesh and blood human being.  don't treat people as icons.  if what you're doing is considered by all your friends as too far out, think thrice-so you don't go outside of the bounds of sanity- check it out.  get a good education reading the eastern and western classics.  avoid animal fat. be a slave to love. wear your heart on your sleeve.  twenty rejections in a row are wiped out by one acceptance."  --from "cups"  in 1994...(a sf literary publication)