I am quieted by the complexity of where we were and what is found and unfound there. There are far too many postures one could take to look at and even feel about the history and the present of this country. Cuba cannot simply be called inexplicable, and I cannot choose one of the thousands upon millions of explanations to tether to my experience. I cannot versus will not because I still stick to a riverbed of my psyche that disallows me my own opinion until I can start with one complete and informed sentence. This is not always or even generally the case with me, as I speak out my opinions with fervor and like to push until I discern resistance. But here, in this place, and even now back home, I am disinclined to remark too much on anything more than our day-to-day happenings. Like I told Ajit, I’ve hardly spent any time there (four trips in a year might sound like whoa, but it’s not enough to start opining on a country’s state of mind) and it is so complex to even attempt to explain well. In some few and other insufficient words, I won’t be providing a distilled statement of what I think Cuba is today because it would be bullshit to do so. So I’ll say this: Cuba is, in fact (heh), a daedel and revolutionary process itself, today and forever. If you want more clarification, go figure that shit out for yourself (or call me and ask me to pour you a drink of my only bottle of Guayabita del Pinar—and then we can keep talking).

So onto our weeks in Cuba 

That second week I was still using honey instead of sugar. I was also disenchanted with the three (¡!) deodorants I brought. My sister Abigail was talking about coming to visit us and I was hoping she would. I felt alone, struggling to just be, and we’ll move on from here to keep this less existential for the moment. Raines and I started reading La travesía del viajero del alba [Voyage of the Dawn TreaderI] and apart from Sylvan’s incessant whining about needing to lay on top of me in order to fall asleep, it’s been excellent. This week, specifically on 6.8.17, I want to heal the parts of me that react so harshly to Aaron (see how introspective things already are). I want a renewal for us, and I know we don’t get this without work. Oh, and after a week of no milk, Santiago saw his friend who has a cow and got us a big pomo of leche de vaca. No butter yet, but when I see it I’m gonna buy a bunch and freeze enough for a month. One evening this week, I sat in Rubi’s smoke-lit second floor dining room and talked about finding butter for more than twenty minutes. And it wasn’t just me; they had their own plans and ways about what to do with mantequilla when they found it. Meanwhile, the boys were outside with the mosquitoes, looking for the giant crabs that live in her yard.

Thursday, 6.8.17, is also when Isabel lied to me and my heart felt grey and leaden. I gave her money the week before to go buy some basics for the house and enough food for the week, and she brought back a lot but not everything from this list. Later that day we walked to the bodega and as she paid for 25 boxes of chagrin-inducing matches, she told me she was spending the last CUC of the money I had given her. I knew, or at least felt that I knew, the rough cost of what I had asked for, and I had given her more than twice the amount needed to buy everything. So I acknowledge a twitch on one side of my face and then walk with her back to the house. It wasn’t until the following day that I asked her to tell me the cost of market goods, so I would know for when I went next time, I told her. She inflated the prices of a few items, and even then we hadn’t even made it to the halfway mark of the amount I had given her. She knew it, and she now knew that I knew it. But still she said nothing. I felt sad. My children’s exquisite fits helped me here, in the sense that I was able to tell Isabel that the boys were acting out so terribly that she wouldn’t need to come anymore after that week but that I would pay her for the following week, as we had agreed.

Shall we talk for just one second about the internet situation? Unless I wanna go splice into a government line, I’ve gotta go to Guanabo for internet. Guanabo has an (juuuust one) ETECSA (Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A.) office and one public park with WiFi. It sounded liberating to me at first—at the very fucking beginning. Here’s an excerpt from when I went to the ETECSA office, waited in line for 30 minutes, and then sat down at one of their three working computers (this is for the entire city and neighboring towns, by the way.): “So my internet session just got disconnected and now my five-hour card is getting denied. It’s feeling rather impossible to get anything done here. Why am I so frustrated when somewhere in my mind I knew this could happen? Tranquila. So I’ll do one or two more things then leave it for tomorrow, or some other day. Ahhh. I have to at least pay one bill. I could just go to the park, I guess, but then it would probably start pouring as soon as I take out my laptop.” I didn’t feel quite as safe in Cuba as I had during my previous trips. Delia and Santiago seemed pretty wonderful, but some other individuals were opening themselves up a bit more and I didn’t find it all lovely. I remember the first time Delia talked to me about people, and Cubans in particular: She said she really doesn’t care so much about five pesos here or 1CUC (1CUC=$1) there, but really it’s the deceit she hates. Me too. Me too. Me too, Delia.

Let’s talk about my kids’ behavior but let’s not really dwell on it. It is terrible and exhausting and Redemptive and beautiful in moments such as Raines’ limeade stand and Sylvan’s bucket baths. It’s a lot to expect them to eat the same food every day, mayonnaise and weird-looking meat and rice and beans foreverrrr (think Sandlot here). I can feel Raines’ little heart opening to me a tiny bit. Adjusting to a baby elven leprechaun brother has been trying for him.

That second week I was feeling grateful for wipes and how I have access to as many of them as I want at home. And tupperware. I started wondering how long it would take me to relax and accept the way things are in Boca Ciega and the way things aren’t in Boca Ciega. Before and whenever we ran out of cow’s milk, I made powdered milk. Oh, and here’s something, if I asked about, for example, flour, I’d probably get a variety of answers, mainly No hay, no hay [there isn’t any] but if I went to four or five stores I’d probably find some…well, maybe. In my experience, this doesn’t reach as far to apply to butter and cow’s milk. So yeah, every Cuban I ask might tell me I can’t find super glue anywhere, but that doesn’t mean I won’t find super glue if I go looking. Also, tape just unsticks here. Give it up for the tropics.

The day we went to the aquarium to see the dolphins was this incredible disaster that left me like the damp towel we use to wipe off the air conditioner unit in the camper. Yep, just like that. We took the bus to the Microdiez stop, where we then took another bus with Ulises and Isabel (this was before the discussion of no más, gracias) to Havana, to take a taxi to the national aquarium (almost two hours all in all), where we then walked in to learn that the dolphin exhibit was closed until…no one could tell us when. So we walked around and looked at fish and one very cute octopus and so many cats, and then we went to a glorious house of gelato! Ulises wanted us to take a fancy taxi for 40CUC and I was like no, so we got the same fuckin taxi for 15 to take us to the zoo ten minutes away, to salvage…something from this day.

On June 11 I realized how especially down I was feeling. By 9:00 a.m., I’d wanted a cup of coffee for more than two hours but it seemed like so much effort for me to make it and so much effort for me to sit and drink it. Plus, turning the stove on would take at least three dinky matches and would make the house even hotter. See, my spirit was feeling stale and fatigued, to the point that I was no longer fixing my facial expressions to talk about food in an encouraging way for the boys. I didn’t want to eat beans and rice anymore either, and maybe never again. More than anything else, though, I was writhing around in my brattiness because we were where we were, and it was on purpose. I couldn’t figure out how to renew my spirit in order to focus on the resplendent moments of our days, and they were happening all the time around me. I whined at God, believing that he couldn’t possibly ignore that tone and would help me, but lethargy stuck with me, perhaps because I could attach rationale to it. Delia lent us her DVD player so now we can watch 1CUC DVDs that we buy on the street here. My Little Pony for days. So why couldn’t I even smile about that? I’m sharing this piece of my experience with you because it was a jolting element of the trip for me. When planning to head back to Cuba, I knew that I needed help with the boys during the days, for me and for them; I needed space and time to take care of practical matters such as basic work stuff and to begin work on myself; And I was hoping, expecting, planning, determined even, to read and write and further develop my own internal syndicate of even more existential ideas. I never sat myself down, however, to address these expectations and the possibility that they would turn out incompatible with reality. And how, after so many trips, did I let that part slip? Perhaps this is yet one more indication that the current amalgam of life we’ve got going is untenable. So I struggled. And as I began to inhabit this state of drudgery, Raines Wilder was making a beautiful friendship with Delia, collecting cans and bottles for recycling (La prima materia) and apprenticing with her in artisanal shell art. Sylvan couldn’t be found happier than he was on the shoreline or in a bucket of water at the front steps of the house. While my children were drinking orange soda and being offered cups of sugar (uh huh, yes) on the regular, with snacks of cookies always, they were doing just fine. Herein lies the undertone of my codependence: I get energy by supporting others, and I wasn’t able to do this there, not the way I wanted to anyway. One day, perspective is gonna grow me right up. But anyway, it was at this point that I decided we should make a change and go check out the supposedly dreamy Varadero. I knew it would be full of tourists, but I was willing to take a chance on a tiny change for a few days. So our friend Oslián picked us up in his purple taxi and drove us the two hours over on the map. Next post I’ll talk about one of our favorite days of the entire trip, because dolphins really are magical.

Some words from the only time I sat alone on the couch at night

I made it out of the room, the one with air conditioning and sleeping children—out here to the couch, in front of the fan. This house is clean. Concrete and ceramic, and clean. And before I finish this sentence, the two ice cubes I dropped in my glass of rum will be gone. And I like rum (and whiskey) neat, but here it’s, um, otra historia. If I didn’t go a bit crazy not having anything to do, I’d say how could you do much more than sit and talk, drink, smoke the occasional cigarette (like I like to do)? So I’m back in Cuba, and this time with my two ruffian, food-resistant children. Well, I guess they’re eating plenty of bread and rice and cheerios (¡!), so there’s that, I suppose. Today, Delia offered Sylvan a plate of food and, without even looking at it, he retorted “I don’t like it!” I mean, I can barely stomach mayonnaise on bread (yes, juuuust mayo on bread), but I try to figure out a way to be grateful but not so grateful that I get to eat it twice. I truly do love and hate slowing down our days. Four to six hours a day on the beach is preferable for the boys, and I’m fine with it until I use my hands to trace the insides of my skull, the etched pathways and bumpy parts, and then quickly resituate my gaze on two children in the water. And yes, the plan was to have Ulises’ mom Isabel help me with the kids so I could go find internet and work to some degree. But see, Raines has closed himself off to trusting anyone he hasn’t known for, he says, at least a year. We had quite the ordeal yesterday, when he declared that Isabel is the worst person in the world. We’ve even talked about how Isabel won’t be coming to the house anymore, so he can lower his level of resistance to other humans. Challenges of traveling with young children (Also, I miss my husband, damnit.). Tonight’s the first night I haven’t fallen asleep next to one of them, and I’m grateful for these moments on this purple couch.

We got here May 31 and now it’s June 13. I’m thinking about Aaron. Really, he does so much. This past week I’ve considered how grounded in him I feel. You’re welcome to relax if you think this is going to get sacrilegious because it won’t (or reconsider your faith, perhaps, if it seems so to you), but I’ve spent so much time resisting (and not always without reason) living in peace with our relationship. And it’s fear, even though I choose life with him every day. How fucking fragile the planks beneath me have felt for years, and yet I determine to continue stepping. This is not all strength or all fear, nor is it just a blinding love that pushes me on; I am indeed capable of so many emotions simultaneously, and all in the same millisecond even. So I’m working on identifying the whys behind this and, well really just coming up with even more questions about where those originated in the first place. It’ll never stop, and I’m good with that. I have a lot to say about our trip thus far, but I just finished my rum and we’re getting up early to go to the national aquarium tomorrow, so I’m gonna go climb into Sylvan’s mosquito net castle and find a corner of the sheet.