Un-Containable
Cuba
One of the perks of marrying a travel photographer has been a few
years of wonderful adventures. Although current laws no longer allow
us to access a legal press pass to visit Cuba, my memories still linger
vividly.
The South Autopista from Havana to Trinidad provided many sights that
caught my eye from cane cutters,(macheteros) lunching in the
shade of their trucks, to inspirational billboards of Che and
José Marti. The mystery cubes however had me stumped.
At first I thought they were white bricks and then I thought
perhaps they were those French blow up sponges that you see
advertised on late night television.
We passed farmer after farmer gesturing towards the car with a wooden
plank topped with these unrecognizable squares. Finally, we
could stand the suspense no longer and slowed our micro-compact
rental to ask, "Qué es?" The answer:
cheese…soft white blocks of queso sold
road-side in the midday sun.
Not surprising, because containers in Cuba are few and far between. They
do not wrap, wrap, and double wrap as do we in the homeland
of the safety lid and the zip-lock baggie. We passed a man
in Trinidad selling cake under a bridge. I gave him a peso coin
and he deposited a large slice, dripping with green icing,
directly into the palm of my hand. (We later noticed the cake
tasted faintly of bacon, a fact we chose to block out rather
than investigate.)
Our Havana hostess, Videllia, the stoic and loony matriarch of my husband’s
Cuban “family” would always remind us to save everything; water
bottles, film canisters, empty hand cream jars...everything
would be re-used. Bottles
and jars reappeared in the kitchen a day or two after their
kidnap, filled with a variety of mystery sauces. With disbelief
we were told that the local hospital used the film canisters
for urine specimens.
The spirit of the Cuban people also has
very few containers. Quite
normal, we found, to walk by a home emanating music and the
aroma of rum and be warmly welcomed in for drinks and dance
lessons. Socializing
sloshes out front doors and open windows with a muddy line
between private and public space. At 3:05, joyous, unbridled
children stripped of indoor techo options, flood the streets
and parks. They
have no reason to miss a moment of the sun. Lorne and I soon
developed a radar for “niños
and niñas” alerting
each other to the faces we found particularly delicious.
We oft fantasized about smuggling back a few in our luggage. Not
so funny since Madonna.
The Cuban skill for living in the moment is also unbridled. Whether
it was a walk along the seaside wall named the Malecón,
or an impromptu salsa session in the middle of a public square,
Cuban joi-de-vivre has a tendency to overflow, burst the dam
and sweep you away as you try to stand idly by.
Containers in Cuba are found mostly in the politics. My affection
for the human landscape did not blind me to the restrictions
on income, food, and personal freedoms. There we found walls.
Walls not to be minimized. And yet these shackles only provided a more
impressive display for attitude of the Cuban people.
Finally, the task of understanding Cuba would outgrow any container it
was confined to. Reach out and accept a slice in the palm of
your hand. It will drip through your fingers and run down your
arm. For the truly open-minded observer the complexity compounds
daily and the more you ask, the more you are not sure. Beneath every expected
con lurks a puzzling pro. The niños run
to school with hand-me-down book bags and the same shoes every
day, but are conspicuously devoid of depression, Ritalin prescriptions
and self esteem issues. And just when I began to pity the Cuban
people for travel restrictions and grocery lines, I found myself
consumed with envy and a sense of respect for their tireless
ability to enjoy what is, to suck the marrow from the bones
instead of asking for more chicken.
Your personal zest for life is the fire which keeps your professional
stew boiling. In support of keeping the flame hot, I ask you
to take a Cuban inventory of yourself…
| • |
What have you done lately to
relish the moment before you? Do you need to
dance, drum or dare before the
next dawn? |
| • |
Is your attitude in your business and personal life
one of reigning in or expanding out? Where can you allow
a little of your Cuban-ness to overflow? |
| • |
Has your work to hone your emotional, professional or
psychological life been so rigorous that it has cut off
your belly laughs? |
Schedule some uncontained time for yourself this week and stoke those
embers before they die out!
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