Vale la pena / Worth It

Posted on February 25, 2019 by sceneafaire under Mexico 2019, Uncategorized

It is—it’s worth it, the loss and the gain experience renders. Um, quite the deficient sentence that is, subjectivity inferred, as worth careens inside each of us, regenerating meaning day to day, moment to moment, every second even. What I mean is these experiences are meaningful enough to us that we keep investing time and money and energy to make these trips happen. These doings, these goings, are components of our family ethos. I could do without the ants though, you know? Just this second, I felt a tender dread swell under my eyes, recalling my human brokenness and assenting to the inquest of shame, if only for a moment. See, I cannot actually attain my hopes for myself, for my children, for my marriage, for my friendships, for my God—not without great and perpetual loss. I’m not talking goals: hope. A bit dreary for someone sitting in the blinding sun, dodging winter floods, yes? No, it’s just the sun and the ocean and the why of being here allow me to sit with these emotions for shorter and longer moments and to then stand up again and make my kid a tortilla roll, pour myself a glass of mezcal even, squeezing in half a lime—salt, if I want.

Releasing hours-old baby sea turtles had me spinning thoughts about living every moment while dying every second. Most days it seems I live by hours, dying faster than I can count heartbeats or brush off sand from Sylvan’s face. I’m glad we did it and I’m glad the seagulls were there and I’m glad we watched as some of the little ones were snatched from the sand or out of the water, carried off in beaks made to do such things. I’m sad human impact on this world is what it is yesterday, today, and I weep for tomorrow because it seems insurmountable, this gross tourbillon of ours. At the same time, in the same town, one man breaks open the soft dented shell of a turtle egg, a fast bite, while another man plants one mangrove tree at a time, hoping the crocodiles and snakes will allow him this work. Both are intentional, both cultural, and only one is worth it. These things rise with such clarity, having to do with the hearts and compulsions of others. And then there’s me and my insides, demanding tenderness and grace and new mercies every turn of my head, every harsh tone aimed at my children, every iniquity. Más para mí, I continue in my callowness—until I get where I’ve gotten more than many times, and I tell the truth about myself, to myself, to a seamless God, and to those holding pieces of my spirit. I beg mercy for me just as much as for those baby sea turtles and, yeah, those seagulls too.

Days here are like this: Around 2:30 a.m. about 15 roosters start crowing (or something somewhat similar), 27 dogs begin yelping and barking, and every dang bird sings their own song. So by 6:00, when Sylvan wakes all the way up and starts asking for some food item we can’t possible find here, I’m up too. I suppose I haven’t mentioned the change in our, um, schedule. Well, about a week back Raines decided he was done with his Spanish class through the surf school. It was less of a previously discussed decision and more of a run-out-of-the-school-and-down-the-sidewalk sort of decision. Surfing was all he needed, he said, and he already knew everything his teacher was telling him, so I was going to buy him a surf board—period. Oh. Okay. Obviously I did all these things immediately to appease the eight-year-old psyche who wants Nutella-only tortilla rolls on the regular. And somebody please remind me when we get back that I owe him an iPhone or one thousand dollars—it might slip my damn mind, tired and all. Anyway (I’m not dissociating, just refocusing), the third day after he made his escape, he decided to talk with his teacher, and though I haven’t a clue what was said, they both came out smiling and she kissed me on the cheek while saying something about how precious children are. Oy…uh, and just when I wanted to put him in a box and then put that box in another box, and so on. After asking around for two more days, I finally found Marta, and we love her! She listens and cares and smiles always and wears beautiful dresses her mother makes her out of African fabrics and lives in a third-floor open-air apartment I’m sure I’ve seen in a dream somewhere and actually knows how to teach. If I get there five minutes early, Raines asks for his five minutes. Then after Spanish with Marta, I scoop him up and drive him to meet his surf instructor, David Rutherford, who is pretty much perfect for Raines. And as I’ve never heard David say “Brah” before, I’m not going to blame him for having to listen to that shit all afternoon, every time he addresses his four-year-old selkie-child brother. Eventually I’ll get some surfing photos up. Apparently he’s really doing well. And now, how to say “You’reamazingsitdownbehumble,” and only with my eyes?

So what if you can’t actually see their faces. Obviously, they’re surfers.

At this point in my glass of wine, the crocodiles (we’re going back!) will need to wait for the next post. I feel many strange and wonderful things when approaching marine biology, even just from the shore or the captivity of a boat. I know I could sit and stare at an alligator or crocodile doing pretty close to nothing for hours, and like it. I know this because I’ve done it, and even without any specific data collecting going on. It’s weird and it’s marvelous to love in holy fear. More soon.

Michael Tain & Raines hanging out at Oasis
His game, his rules. Wanna guess who always wins?

least-fav helmet of my life
ours for a few

fireman? Arborist? Surfer?
sunscreening craze

Marta!
Post-surfing Raines
Funeral for a crab

Sylvan’s first surfing lesson

Sylvan said he will go surfing again when he’s eight

Gallo de Mar Hostel, La Punta, Puerto Escondido

Also back at home…our favorite Triceratops was feeling depressed.

precious plastic things

Home & Jeep!
me, most days

Meanwhile, back home in Tennessee: Eeeeek!

FaceTiming Dad from the beach

This beach is 60% metal (La Ventanilla, Mazunte)

Our guide, Elián, took this photo for me so the crocodile would eat him first and then have to go five feet farther to eat me.

San Agustinillo

El río

Riding off into the sunset with some very annoyed horses.

Así lo empezamos / And So We Begin

Posted on February 13, 2019 by sceneafaire under Mexico 2019, Uncategorized

Nearly two weeks in and this uneven tan on my left shoulder is coming along perfectly. I was thinking I could spend my 8:30s-10:30s at night reading and writing a bit. But, well, most of these nights I close my eyes just moments after my children calm themselves to sleep (Is this really what they do?). I have had the occasional glass of wine in the dark. Perhaps next week Islas en el golfo and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle will subsume themselves as necessities, or even fates.

Little man had anger covering up all his tears. Saying goodbye to the Papa we love is hard.

There will never be another Tío Roddy. Saying goodbye through sound-proof glass at BNA.

We are down at the bottom of Mexico, staring out at a Pacific edge, in an investment to slow down to go faster. Sometimes floating through our days on these yearly trips is appropriate, but this one has a few more pounds of structure included—for me, for them, for us. Raines is going to Oasis Spanish & Surf School during the week, where he’s already up on his own out there with the sea turtles (thinking positively, watching from the sand). Sylvan spends his days at Explora, an Agile Learning Center here in Puerto Escondido (kids are people, okay?). The city is a bit more spread out than I expected, so now we have a scooter that will hopefully turn into an Xterra in the next few days. Both boys seem more than alright, except after three miles of walking and/or finding more sand in their shorts always. Thanks to Primo West, we’re on book three of his Geronimo Stilton series (So when I said I haven’t been reading, what I meant was…I’m not the one choosing the book.). I got Sylvan this Batman hat that I keep trying to steal and he keeps taking back. We eat ice cream at least once a day—all this exercise we’re getting, it’s basically required. Yesterday Sylvan accidentally ordered Oreo instead of mint chocolate, so we had to get another one to smooth out the afternoon. Judge us, we lovingly care not.

Batman hat stolen for the moment. He took it back and I had to get a bright green hat that is only very…functional.

I would like to mention a few things we’ve survived so far. First, I’d like to delete the Mexico City layover from my memory. I really don’t want to learn anything from it except perhaps that we can’t, in fact, delete terrible airport experiences. And it wasn’t so awful really, we even got donuts. Anyway, our final one-hour flight said “On Time” for three hours after the scheduled departure time, so we ended up dragging ourselves and our stuff into our Puerto Escondido bed around 1:00 a.m. Here! Our place here at Casa Mangos is pretty great, super clean, and quiet—apart from the delightful screeches of my two children. No drama here, until I decide to shower off the grit and sand the boys keep collecting. It has been said I throw my children to the wolves. I didn’t dispute the assertion, but rather the sharp-toned arrow on which it was thrown. This is true and intentional here as well, I suppose, but with the slight twist of crocodiles, sharks, and rocks (ask the surfers at La Punta). It’s Raines, mostly, who’s been doing all the extreme surviving. He’s surfing real waves every day. In the real ocean. Where all those very real creatures live and rule. And when we went to the bioluminescence lagoon, he jumped out of the boat and into the water. All the while, I’m in the boat with a sleeping Sylvan. He peed on my lap while his brother was swimming in pitch-black waters (save the seconds of bioluminescence), where the crocodiles love to hang out. I was fine, really, and figured the giant crocodile who lives there would probably chomp one of the other crazies who jumped in before they got to my skinny little child. Talk about delighting in my children—it’s in the experimental stage at this point, but I think it’s working. Oh, and when we went on the dolphin search and saw hundreds of them, Raines jumped out of the boat in the middle of the fucking ocean and swam around. He asked me to come, too, and I responded with quiet murmurs and then articulated something like, “Um, I’m actually scared and I have you’re brother, so…but you can do it!” See, he was trying to listen to the dolphins under water. So much like Aaron, once motivation is accessed and internalized, energy seems to be hasta el infinito. By the way, Sylvan has also survived a few bites from babies at his school and at least three sidewalk wipeouts. Almost forgot to mention the taekwondo classes the boys took—once. Sylvan said he wanted only karate or jiu jitsu (anything other than taekwondo, it would seem) and Raines said never again. So we’re done with that for now, I believe.

Just before he jumped into the darkness! Bioluminescence is pretty rad, btw. Mainly my kid though.

My camera flash reveals nothing extra horrible in the waters. Also, bioluminescence does not show up on photos, I guess.

I’ll stop soon, for today, and then I’ll try to stay a leetle more up to date on our travels here. But before I go now, and just as I finish this glass of mezcal, here’s what I’m thinking on and suffering with as of late: micro– and macro-failing as a parent (yes, I made this up, but it’s working for me in this second so I need to leave it for now) and manufacturing an answer from God about all this good shit inside me and why the fuck and for what purpose is it there(¿¡?!). I won’t be getting any answers on the latter until I throw my spirit up on a sandy Puerto Escondido sidewalk and surrender, give up, rendirme, re-remember that managing God is, damnit, unmanageable. And as for the mothering-end of things, starting yesterday my primary focus is to delight in my children and to make this known to them (Also, Tosha and Claire probably can’t take on any more friends because I’m so neeeeedy—but you can ask). And to calm the fuck down—this is also a priority. Also, thanks to Amy I’m now veering away from the Doestoevsky effect of aspiring to be worthy of my suffering. No. No…no. There is meaning in suffering, and the size and effect of suffering is quite relative in regards to the enduring human, and suffering itself is not my god nor my purpose. How about I start anew as often as my spirit appeals, and I can certainly use this to do so: “Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self” (Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, 38). And may I be grateful for even the smallest of mercies, sometimes showing up as an ice-cream–smeared smirk on my four year old’s face.

Oh, we went to Playa Bacocho the other night and released baby sea turtles to their…lives? deaths? I’ll say some more words about this soon—still processing. I almost started singing “The Circle of Life” but then I realized I was just dissociating to avoid sobbing on the beach in front of Sylvan and Raines. Until I unwrap this, here are some photos:

climbing on the wall right next to the mats.

Please come sit and drink a bowl of coffee with me.

Playa Carrizalillo. 1 million steps down (ask Raines) and it’s worth it.

Mickey Mouse is better than a photo of breast cancer? Not really.

The taekwondo class that Raines is never going to, ever again.

Confirmed, not a Komodo dragon. Iguanas are cool too.

Sylvan made his own Zen Zone at Explora.

Holding onto me as we watch the sun set over Zicatela.

Moments before he peed on my lap in the boat.

And then a wave came up and soaked me, my book, and all our stuff.

A quieter, slower morning. This hanging plant had me missing Banning.

almost post-sunset at Carrizalillo. I nearly missed it because I kinda got knocked down by a wave or a shark.

Last Summer on Cuba: Fotos para ti

Posted on January 13, 2018 by sceneafaire under Cuba 2017

I’m staring out my window at another snow day here in Nashville, Tennessee. These days are January and I want to take it back to last July, when tank tops and ice in my rum made sense. If you want more on this trip, the other posts are under the Cuba 2017 link on the Menu. ¡Salud!

Chavi, Sylvan’s REALLY good friend. Let me state that dolphins are magical.

We were in the water on that platform, with the dolphin, IN THE WATER!

There were magic sparkles in the air and the water.

Perhaps one day Sylvan will tell me why he trusted this woman to hold him but would scream and writhe when greeted by others.

Delia winning…everything

First ride in Santiago’s car. They took us to Campo Florido to visit one of their sons

Hunting sea turtles is illegal, but it still happens every day.

Delia and Santiago, on their wedding day.

Tiny collections on our windowsill

Looking out

Arianna and her little sweet Odelay. This is Oslián’s (fav taxi driver and friend) family.

This guy was way chill

This made sense every day.

And Tía Abby arrived!

Wearing their handmade (by Raines) bracelets.

Sylvie y Tía.

We rented a ride around Havana with one of the only female drivers I’ve seen there. I’m calling her when I go back.

Playa Boca Ciega.

Precious and hilarious friends: Rubiceida, Idarmis, Cusita.

Señora Carmen and Abigail. This woman founded The Academy of Art on Isla de la Juventud, and in her 90s she still enjoys English workbooks and paging through old photo albums.

Cusita and me (wearing the jewelry she gave me for my birthday).

Rubi, Carmen y yo.

On our way to Viñales, Oslián stopped for Mangoes.

Viñales, the view from our room at Los Jardines

Mañanitas

My spirit was too tired before she even got there. I am so grateful for this sister of mine.

Cafecito sobre El Valle de Viñales.

Tobacco barn at Cooperative Hermanos Balcón.

Yosviel Baullosa and his cigars.

Our bratty trail horses.

After learning about their tobacco, we got to sit down and drink homemade concoctions.

Favorite.

Sylvan y Mamá, montados a caballo.

On a boat, in a cave.

Leaving La Cueva de los Indios.

Tesoritos con tesoritos.

Ran into a friend on the street in Viñales. Maikel says hi, Banning and Canción.

Exploring on Cayo Levisa.

Running towards billowing clouds.

La tormenta

Just before the storm arrived.

I never stopped looking for barracuda.

Raines and Abigail created some beautiful sand castles.

Hands full of candy and a toy shark.

Béisbol

Béisbolito

Raines, heading out to bring back la materia prima for Delia.

Weathered in ways I want.

When I talk with Delia on the phone she reminds me of the photos we left on their fridge.

Delia Quevedo calls me and tells me she loves me and to please come back. I call her and tell her I will as soon as I can.

Giving goodbyes.

Santiago hugs El Rubio, as we head to the airport.

¡BNA!

Us, and some fuzzy children.

Taciturn on Cuba

Posted on July 27, 2017 by sceneafaire under Cuba 2017, Uncategorized

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.

Silky’s Caracol. He made it all the way through our trip, and decided to keep on living in Cuba.

A fisherman’s gift to Raines Wilder. Living with a throw line is no fucking joke (the hook is always somewhere).

not my spirit animal

Isabel y Ulises.

Alamar, from their balcony. This is a tiny clip. There are streets after streets after streets of stacked buildings, all the way up to the rocky edge and water.

Escultor de Alamar / Sculptor of Alamar

Barracuda heads. Alamar, Cuba, 6.10.17

La costa de Alamar, 6.10.17 Ulises said he spent his childhood jumping off this dock

¡Agua de Limón! R’s limeade stand. One guy came back three days in a row, but R was always closed unless he wasn’t.

Big bags of fish and big bags of crabs. All night long they fished, until Santiago went and picked them up. Frozen fish for the future.

This is Sylvan’s glamorous castle

One room in Boca Ciega, Cuba

Hard-boiled eggs for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks

I was trying not to cry and Sylvan was squinting from the sun. Guanabo, Cuba, 6.11.17

This was the same day that his kite got stuck in a power line. He ran back to me crying and I hugged him but told him that was why I said we needed to wait until we got to the beach to fly it. A hug bereft of comfort. A while later, a man called Raines over to him and gave him his kite. He had untangled it, cut, and then retied it for Raines. When we thanked him, he told us he didn’t like to see children sad.

Delia with a bucket of Sylvan. 6.12.17

Piscinita

Atelier, Vedado, Cuba, 6.13.17

Jorge is a kind man and I was so grateful to hug his neck this day. Atelier, 6.13.17

All the way from Guatemala. It was the coldest one, she said, and who wants to drink warm Cristal or Bucanero?

The aquarium of the sea lion and the kitties

Besides the gelato that day, this was my favorite part

Gelato in Miramar

Sylvie y el cocodrilo

recuperating from our day like this:

Delia’s shell art apprentice

For Colleen

Lobster dinner by Delia

On our way to a bad plan

Glo sticks on the beach!

Raines’ first shell art. Papá e hijo

“moving in” to Delia’s work space

Hermanos

FaceTime with Annelle, important topics discussed

Cafetera

In Oslián’s taxi on our way to Varadero

dreaming of galletas

We went to the beach in Varadero only to decide that it was just like the one in Boca Ciega, and then we stayed at the pool after that

Glorious, especially to gleefully drink pool water

Tooth 2, lost in Varadero, Cuba 6.19.17

Showing Tío Roddy his new look

Flowers from Raines

I do not actually like paddle boats. I really do not like them on the sea.

Sylvan told me he wanted to stay and be Captain for longer. So he stayed for longer.

He should practice, since he’s saving up money for his own surf board (since we live by the ocean and not in the woods…)

Not two minutes later he had a big red slash across his cheek. These cats are all related to 1870

Balanced, wouldn’t you say?

very serious catamaran-er

On our way to Cayo Blanco on a giant catamaran

Cayo Blanco and a 3CUC ice-cream cone

Walking until they made me turn around

Cayo Blanco, 6.21.17

He Left Us in Cuba

Posted on July 14, 2017 by sceneafaire under Uncategorized

I was smoking a cigarette on those ceramic front steps. It was June 7 and Aaron had left the day before. One week into this thing and my lungs still hadn’t relaxed to let that salt-soused air in the way I wanted them to. That’s what the cigarettes were for, okay?

This was the plan I had made and he had agreed to: This year it would be me and the boys in Boca Ciega, Cuba, for all of June and some of July, with Aaron holding the rest of our world down. Raines would work with me on reading and writing in Spanish (primary medium: Las Crónicas de Narnia), Sylvan would leave his guileless and delightful Spanglish behind to welcome a flood of fluency, and I would ask myself questions that would cultivate a foundational consonance. These were components of my expectations for this trip, but I told myself they were tiny clips of what our days would entail. Ulises’ mother Isabel would help me with the boys, providing the requisite time and space for the three of us. It would be challenging in identifiable ways, I esteemed, as if to extinguish any further critical thought or planning. Oh, how haughty I can be. Determining through hours and afternoons and weeks wasn’t something I was doing anymore, I mean, even my daily vocabulary had shifted to prove it. External to internal coercion still doesn’t work for me, by the way, even when I feel the light on my face and can prove some beneficial something about whatever I’m doing. This is some tricky bullshit, but scrutinize away if it sets your spirit at peace.

So back to paradise island. Those 30 steps from the house to the beach land in the little pile of premium, superfine successes of the trip. I felt grateful every day for our little white house and its proximity to magic waters. Um, except for that week the boys boycotted the beach and demanded only cookies and shows and NO MORE BEACH. But we’re not there yet. The week we had with Aaron let us figure out how to light the stove and make Cuban coffee (I’m now on a sugar crash I’m hoping will trail off in a few weeks), scout out our ice cream spot in Guanabo, introduce ourselves to Playa Boca Ciega, and have a superhero birthday party for Aaron (42 year olds need piñatas too). You wondering where my romantic encomiums about Cuba are? They are still leveling at the base of my skull, waiting to complete just one communicable sentence before transuding down my spine and into my nervous system.

This first post is too short but my laptop is about to die and I think my heart rate just spiked because I haven’t actually processed much of the wonders and dangers of this trip yet. Also, you might be thinking What a bratty post. She just spent her summer in Cuba with her kids! This is super true, and I have 5 weeks of our days in Cuba to strain, so if you need to ex out of this page, it’s really okay. Until I get back to you, here’s a short clip from my mind the morning after Aaron left:

AM mind-emptying scraps (reeeeeeeeeeally dramatic and without explanation, so enjoy!)

“I’m smoking a cigarette on the front steps of our house here in Boca Ciega. I miss Aaron. He left yesterday and I miss him. The night before he left we had a beautiful time between us and I remembered just a little bit what it is to let him love me and to love him…I guess I remember love–the tenderness, the intimacy….I felt so NOT brave when Aaron left and I feel that a little less today but it’s still there–that fragile feeling. Ulises and his lifeguard friend just walked up from speargun fishing. No fish today. It just feels like too much. My eyes tear up in little waves. So I have no idea how to make this work and I don’t feel at peace and I miss Aaron and Sylvan misses Annelle and Raines lost a tooth (!) and his toenail got smashed under a rocking chair and it came off entirely. But it’s pretty much scabbed and already healing. So Isabel is Ulises’ mother. Delia is so wonderful. She owns the house and her husband Santiago and she live in the back house. They’re 67 (D) and 78 (S). So funny too. ”

The lovely patio at our Airbnb in Vedado, La Habana

After too many hours of travel

Rain watchers

Child on tile

Esposo and 1 out of 2

My cocotaxi driver got out to hang with his friend for a minute. Red light.

Sylvan picked this flower for Annelle.

First hello

Those are entire trees buried there. I told Sylvan he could keep trying to dig them out.

Montado a caballo

La Casita

Evening out the front door

Sun moving down the sky

Getting ready for snorkeling/diving

Papa climbed a coconut tree and brought us something to drink

I kept trying to make any design in my coffee other than Che’s face but it’s impossible…can’t you see it? He’s EVERYWHERE. Heh

Batman vs. Spiderman, I guess

First of 2 teeth he lost in Cuba!

Off to Havana to send Papa home

Sending Papa off in a taxi for the airport

Not a favorite part of the trip

El contento en lo nublado: Post III of more than III

Posted on February 1, 2017 by sceneafaire under Uncategorized

Gray, windy, warm Boca Ciega, Cuba.

The first of two times Ruby got overly emotional was when she talked about Fidel’s death. He was a good president, she said. They mourned his death this way: no music, no celebrations. The skin under her eyes darkened red and she took out a napkin to wipe underneath her glasses. Raúl is of a different mind than Fidel. He has the face of Fidel but he’s going to change things. So I went downstairs and slept until morning.

I wake up when I want to and have a cafecito with perfect eggs, and then a café con leche because. I walked to the store to buy butter, rum, yogurt, water, and cigarettes. I never got the butter, I guess, now that I think about it. And then I grabbed my book and made my way to the green moss landing on the windy beach. Let’s stop making this so informational and move to the postmodern anthropologist dip of my temperament…I’ll lay out some of my emotional reactions. Well, maybe just one for right here: contentment. I felt content filtering in and out of their second-floor conversations, intent on under-imposing myself. On the beach I was content. I smoked cigarettes while reading my Ferrante novel and trying harder and harder to connect my flighty thoughts to proportionate emotions. I mediated this contentment to such an extent that day that when Cusita answered the phone with a cigarette in her other hand and I heard my sister’s distant voice, I smiled a real smile. Kathryn had called to find me because she had spoken with one of our other sisters, who had told her that I flew away the day before. So she went to Aaron, who explained that he knew he probably wouldn’t hear from me until I landed back in Miami, and no, he didn’t really know where exactly I was but my taxista friend Arturo was picking me up and had found a place for me to stay. Imagine at least six feet of peace-sapped snow pile atop my astute, loving, critically thinking sister. Um. So yes, I explained to her where I was, description-wise (Boca Ciega, just outside of Havana, four-story house, Ruby, ask along the way, etc.) and told her that—obviously—I had left some kind of a trail. I mean, if Aaron had really needed to get a hold of me, he would’ve thought, shit, I guess I’ll have to call Banning and Canción and see where they think she ended up, and wait, maybe I actually have Arturo’s contact info (yes, you do, Aaron) so I’ll just e-mail him and see. And then, to Kathryn, “How exactly did you go about finding me?” Oh, she contacted Canción. Muah! Still smiling.

I’m gonna break in here to unriddle the why of my circuitous experience way last year in December, 2016. We’ve all come so far since then, I’m sure we can agree. Closer to God, perhaps, and/or finding ourselves in ever-increasing proximity to a Cheeto-dust bathed hell—Thank you, Nina Donovan. I’m gonna chase it as far as I’ve gotten without losing my breath to shame—necessary and unnecessary prolix will be involved, for those of you who need to set your expectations. It would be OKAY if I had just been tired, so I went to Cuba; It would be JUST FINE if took my Christmas week to lie on the beach in a green one-piece, reading a 400-page novel ’cause I wanted to; It would be UNDERSTANDABLE—and fucking copacetic—if I had taken a break from dreamy camper life in order to sleep alone, nobody tocando mis pechos, no dead squirrels in my boots. In fact (my facts, heh…) I’m coursing through the flux, trying to differentiate secret parts of me before the bad ones fuse to, well, me—Not all of of the secret files, of course, but mainly just the least inconvenient ones. What did I even just say in that sentence? Nice fucking disclaimer, I suppose.

So I’ll just say I recognize a resolve in me about being more tired than I was 10~ years ago and I stay the avoirdupois (inescapable use of this word here) of not having gone further in my own internal investigation—not in an academic way exactly (because, ya know, kids are just not made of the same stuff as that Cultural Anthropology, 3rd Edition textbook. This is not to say that I didn’t immediately begin to develop skills for keeping children alive (success so far, by the way). I am tired because I slingshot from inclinations toward independence to longing for interdependence to caretaking for others’ emotions. So more like a triangle slingshot…um, yes. I know and I know and I know that there is more to me. So before this gets way too me-centric (I know, blog = ….anyway). And so I need to find the vigor to begin where I am. And by the way, it’s probably gonna be like me having to turn in a ten-page paper on Derrida in three days time—and I haven’t been in academia since 2008. Also, don’t compare me to my sister Annie, who is crazy-loca and started law school while her husband is in med school, she has a toddler (Love you, Mack!), and lives in the middle of America. Oh yeah, and wouldn’t you decide to have another baby (Your favorite tía loves you, Noble!) to make that second year of law school more exciting?! I could survive the Derrida paper, I posit, but only because I would download Ajit’s brain into my own and recast the brilliance into my own little words to turn in. And no, I can’t do a recap of all the shit I just spit out. Because I don’t fully understand what this fucking haze that I’m trying to get off the whites of my eyes is—not yet. But that first day in Cuba was contentment.

So more posts to come on Christmas in Cuba, I guess, because I’ve only made it through Thursday. Fotos while you wait:

What evening looks like

evening view from the 4th floor of the house

Dry white whine for the Saint

Rubiceida, Cusita, Idarme

Back to Cuba, Part II…of III

Posted on January 25, 2017 by sceneafaire under Uncategorized

I’m sitting back down in front of this screen again because Aaron took the boys back to the camper and gave me my own evening—showing me love in many ways these days. He’s probably driving up our muddy driveway in the Tacoma right now, managing (like we just keep on doing) to not fall down, down, down into the ravine. Some days that’s the highest level of success I can manage, or so I tell myself when I get to the top—excellent job, try again tomorrow. At least…at least, right? And now back to December, when I ran away to Cuba with healthy antidependent inspiration. I gotta find new ways to describe what desperation looks like when it swamps this filter of a spirit of mine. And maybe that’s what it’s been this season: a deluge of mud and moss and roots and shale, amassing in my lungs and at the back of my skull where my head meets those first few cervical vertebrae. But let’s not forget the life-wrenching (I mean this) love that comes with human (and kittums and pup) connection. It still dissheveles me when I relinquish power, lifting my nails out of the imprints they’ve dug into my palms. So, if you’re wondering, I was in no way deserting my family the week of Christmas. But I did fly to Miami and then fly to Havana, Cuba. Because I decided to, with the help of Aaron, and Mom, who literally packed my bag while Sylvan was lying on my chest in a fever—Thank you, I love you, I mean this. The boys were more than fine on Christmas, covered in love and so much excitement at Mom and G-Pa’s. So yeah, there’s no apology. But concern away, if you must!

Back in Havana, I got to meet Arturo’s mother for the first time, drank my first baby cup of café that week, and released myself to be right where I was. Then he drove me to Boca Ciega, 30-ish minutes outside of Havana, and La Puma made it there just fine, even if it was raining hard down on the glass in front of our faces. We turned around and pulled off onto dark, empty streets. Asking along the way, referencing the house description with the name Rubiceida attached, we got there: a four-story house, 20-seconds from the waves, the beach, the edge of Cuba.

I met Idarme first, one of Ruby’s daughters. She showed me the bottom-floor apartment and I calmed Arturo and affirmed him in his scouting skills. He said See? I take care of you! And then he went and filled their book out with his info. Ruby had agreed to this because he told her I needed to be alone and I speak Spanish and I was his friend, after all, so she really could trust me. That night Idarme gave me the menu for the restaurant from which I could order food when I got hungry. Just let them know what I wanted and they’d call it in for me. I asked about rum and they said I should wait until the morning to walk down and buy a bottle. I started reading my book that night and I never did order from that menu. Shit, I’ll need to add another post, because there’s more—because my time was more than lovely. So much more. See, I wanna go sit with Banning for a few minutes before I drive home in the Fit and walk up our beautiful mud pile.

Fotos para ti

Cafecito Cubano

Primera noche, Boca Ciega

Cocina del apartamento

Salita

Bañito

No way i could ever reproduce this image

Idarme

Casa de Rubiceida, Boca Ciega

Cocina de mi apto.

solita en soledad

Día Dos: (Let us in, let us in)

Posted on August 21, 2016 by sceneafaire under 30 en Cuba

Miami > Havana

Sunday morning we woke up and made our way via Uber to the Miami airport. Before this, Canción had already been out on the beach in her vintage romper, talked with a guy coming off a night of Molly (er, he mainly talked at her), and showered (Right, C?). So then we said bye to the hotel, sipped coffee and tea, ate a piece of toast maybe, and talked about our super-intense itinerary. It was way too probable that we would all be interviewed and then blocked from entering Cuba. Right? I mean, this was the ultimate anxiety-inducing thought of the morning. But really, I figured even if that happened we could go back to Miami and find a boat to take us there. So I was concerned but I wasn’t. And of course at some point I was like, shit, I have dreads and, ugh… I should probably try to braid them or something. I am, in fact, this white girl from the US, with a long-running interest in Latin America. Oh, and I think I speak Spanish and I want my kids to be bilingual and, well, it doesn’t just start to sound bourgie, it is fucking bourgie. My head’s full of this and the effects of the Cuban Revolution on the rest of Latin America. Sunday morning—where were you?

At the airport we stood in a line with big-screen TVs (so many), huge duffle bags of clothing, and other people. Wait. I’ve presumed that you (Hi, Annie; Hi, Colleen; Hi, Mom) already know about Canción and Banning. Just in case you aren’t Annie, Colleen, or my mom, I’ll say a quick something about each of these women. It can’t be long or detailed at all because I love them each so dearly and to such ineffable extents that I have to cap it, in writing at least. Well, at least for now, for here. Canción met me and I met her on a youth mission trip to Acuña, Mexico, when she was 19 and I was 17. We were the two interpreters for our group and being very emotionally involved with, well, our own emotions, we acted like we were friends right away but were quite certain that one of us didn’t like the other. Haylie died just a few months later and I began to stagnate, like the weeks-old rainwater pooling in the middle of our land. Then this happened: Canción’s family moved to Cleveland, Tennessee, and I caught a ride back to Chattanooga (UTC) with Canción in her bright-white Toyota Corolla. We listened to MIA, Bob Dylan, most likely Copeland, and Dashboard—and the Beatles. By the time we reached my Oak Street apartment, Canción’s friendship had been TIG welded to the contours of my spirit.

Canción de Rut Hayes got me and loved me. She was meek (not a thing to do with weakness) and outspoken when she wanted to be. She knew all about that Unbearable Lightness of Being–type fascination with the boy who lived in the blue house up Oak Street. “I mean, he’s beautiful,” she would agree, “how could you not?” And we weren’t talking about his character (different descriptions applied there). It wasn’t that she didn’t know that I was numb and living a purpose-driven life prioritizing unhealthy and self-destructive choices. She definitely did, and we talked about those things; But she didn’t try to pray for me too much and she was able to love the parts of me that could exhale life and love in some way. Anyway, there’s more than a decade more to us, but I’m not going to delve that way here. I’ll now just tell you that when she agreed to come on this trip, I felt grateful.

I met Banning at Centennial Park here in Nashville (2009 or 2010, we think). She was wearing leather shoes and I thought that she must’ve had them for years and years. She also had a cigarette in her hand (tres cool…). She had just come back to the States, back from the spirit-borrowing life of an international ballerina. But we met for real and it stuck in 2013, after she decided to stay in Nashville for more than a minute and launch a proliferative cultural shift here in our city (New Dialect). I’m sure she has other words for what she was doing, but this is obviously what’s going on now. Back in 2013, Banning e-mailed me and said that it was like we should already know each other but we didn’t and that I should come to a New Dialect rehearsal. So I did. And then coffee with Becky and Mary Arwen after rehearsal. I didn’t have the emotional energy to have unintentional friends at this point, so butterflying through a friendship was out. Today she is a most precious friend. Banning articulates her virtuousness and its frailty to me in our friendship—and this is love. I have listened to Banning and have learned what strength can come from vulnerability; she has listened to me and allowed the space for me to temper my foundation when I see it cracking underneath my heels. Oh, there is more, so come to Nashville, buy a ticket, and watch what she’s done (or bring us wine and sit with us). When she agreed to come on this trip, I felt grateful.

So that wasn’t exactly quick, but it explains a percentage of some things. We landed on the island of Cuba and felt many emotions. We waited and waited for our bags, while standing in a fan-free room with hundreds of other citizens of somewhere. Oh, we did have to go through and hand in our visas. I think what happened is Canción complimented the agent on his hair and then it worked and we walked in. Heh. As we rode in our taxi to Marta’s apartment, I kept picturing us on a world map, somehow on Cuba, somehow making our way from the airport to Vedado. It wasn’t a cartoon in my head, but it wasn’t real yet.

Marta’s place is on the 14th (between 13 and 15) floor of a building on La Avenida de los Presidentes. Bronze tributes to Latin America’s revolutionaries right outside our door. Marta opened the door and didn’t seem impressed. Maybe even if we weren’t three American women at her door, the staidness with which she showed us to our room and instructed us on how to use the keys could have been noted. But see, maybe not. I’m still working on this part of me. I believe we all become very interested in Marta and her story about thirty seconds after she opened her door. I’ll mention more about Marta another time, but you should know that my last morning in Cuba was spent hunting flowers for her. If she will have me back, I want to learn more from this composed woman.

We unraveled our things and laid around a bit in the room, before heading out to our first dinner at a close-by Paladar. A pitcher of mojitos, soup, meat, veggies—all in a tiny apartment restaurant. And instead of continuing to ask about dishes from their 3-5–page menu, we asked about the plates of the day. After dinner we, um, borrowed some cigarettes from two Cuban women in the alley courtyard. Banning took a photo of some stairs for Kevin, and then we sat and talked and smoked those cigarillos. We caught a taxi back to Marta’s and got ready for our evening at Fábrica de Arte (http://www.fac.cu).

Fábrica de Arte was incredible. Each of us honed in on different aspects of what was going on around us. It’s a gallery. It’s a theater. It’s a bar. There’s food. There’re classes. The doors kept bridging buildings and our evening was a most entertaining conjugation of conversations. Toward the beginning of our night there, we ordered espressos and drank them from baby ceramic mugs while we watched a Woody Allen play, live and in Spanish. we walked up those concrete ramps and back through the theater and then the gallery, and then up stairs to a guy pasting a giant photo on the wall. I started drinking rum and then we walked down another concrete ramp and into another giant room. It was dark and Michael Jackson’s videos were on the wall. We were almost there until four in the morning. But we weren’t. Our night lasted a bit longer, involving the photography of Enrique Rottenberg and then, finally, another taxi home to floor 14. These are all terrible descriptions of my emotional state that night, an abeyant storytelling of our first night in Havana. But that’s what I’ve got for now, until it settles into my spine.

Coladas, aleluia, aleluia

Ajit said they should at least try to look a little more revolutionary

But this is how we really felt (probably because we are Yumas)

Last block before the Malecón. These boys were all inside their fort. When I asked if I could take their photo, they jumped out, lined up, and did this.

Banning on the Malecón

Canción and me, on the edge of the island

Ropa vieja (not Banning’s- the food)

Mojitos in a tiny Paladar

Banning and me

Canción y yo

a little more like us

before or after smoking borrowed Cuban cigarettes (and most likely Banning speaking French)

View from Marta’s incredible apartment

Arte, of course

Fábrica de Arte

MJ at Fábrica de Arte

In the dark at Fábrica de Arte

BNA>MIA, M+B+C

Posted on July 10, 2016 by sceneafaire under 30 en Cuba, Uncategorized

Sylvan nursed for the last time the evening of June 24, 2016. And then he nursed between midnight and three the next morning. Sometime before 4:00 a.m. I got up, took a sweet look at my sleeping sons, kissed Aaron, and left in an Uber for the airport—scooping up one Banning Bouldin along the way. I had warned her previously about our 6:00 a.m. flight and said she’d be so mad at me but it was the only way really. It must not have registered with her at the time—that cush life, heading up a nonprofit contemporary dance company (http://www.newdialect.org) must really be distracting—because the day before the flight, when she asked me again and I told her, there was this fantastic outburst about the fact that that wasn’t even part of the day. I knew she’d forgive me (I had told her previously about that too), and at this point she has. You have, Banning, you have. So we wandered through the airport, flew in an airplane, did some things about leaving our bags at the hotel, and went and ate sandwiches at Mister Block Cafe (http://misterblockcafe.com) at 10:30 a.m. Oh, and cappuccinos. And then we began.

We moved through this day in a warm skepticism. Or at least that sensation started smoothing over edges and questions of how exactly we were where we were and were going to be where we were going. I mean, dreamy seems like a word I should avoid (my hair and all) but that’s how it felt for the first bit of the trip. We made it back to our hotel on South Beach (http://thefreehand.com/miami/) and sat around their super-fancy yet chill courtyard (equally emphasized), waiting on Canción to walk out of those art-deco doors. She made it. She flew from Detroit, away from her Miela and from Chad, and she came because I asked and she wanted to. Banning and Canción met for the first time and inside my head I said things of hope and fearless prayers.

We were waiting a bit to check into our room, so we put our swimsuits on in a tiny hallway bathroom and walked 1.5 blocks to the ocean (¡!). Canción has this video of me running into the water for the first time and even though it looks like I fell into the waves, I didn’t; I dived—maybe not perfectly timed but definitely on purpose. ahem. We stayed in this suite with a long couch, four bunks, and an avocado tree outside the door. There was so much more to this place but I’m going to stop being detailed on that front and start keeping secrets. So go there (The Freehand Miami) and tell Anne Posschelle that I sent you. I guess I’d like to communicate that each of us (Canción, Banning, me) emanated a particular energy during this trip. More specifically (since this really could be said about, well, anyone), each of our spirits made a low, continuous hum during our days together, with each hum diverging from its everyday: Banning fell, as she does so well, all the way down and up to a place of openheartedness; Canción tenderly sustained the counterpoise of her time away; and I, well, I breathed in a peace that turned to joy that I then exhaled with a cathexis for each moment, each interaction. What a fucking privilege.

Eesh, this isn’t even our entire first day and we haven’t even gotten to Havana yet, but I gotta head home and tap into the trail end of Buenas Noches time at the camper. I’ll continue this ASAP. So until then, Buenas Noches from JJ’s in Nashville. Nostalgia is filling up my stomach so I gotta get out of here.