closer to fine

I am purposefully wandering right now… wandering through the Havana streets in search of a place to eat lunch, wandering along the coast trying to understand the force of the sea, wandering in and out of good books looking for entertainment. I suppose you could say as well that I wandered to Cuba, purposefully of course. Wandering with direction and confidence, or confidence in a seemingly intentional direction, is important and often termed education…

I met my maker the other day… in the form of a 5’4’’ steel Cuban aerobics instructor. After a thirty minute intense dance session, one in which all the women around me were working it and I was fumbling around trying to get the steps, often turning, jumping, and leaping in the wrong direction, the steel form of a woman described four stations through which we were to “rotando.” The demonstration of the stations went as follows, a squatting, bottle full of sand lifting station, a leg lift station, the third, and a favorite, was the military style push up station… the last was to do step ups onto the stage, a 2 foot rise… Needless to say her workout tore me up. Never have I watched quarter size drops of sweat fall from my elbows. I was yelled at on three separate occasions in Spanish… to spread my legs out further on the squats… to keep my supporting leg straight on the leg lifts… and to put my butt down on the push ups. We snuck out before we were to “rotando” to the push up station a second time with the intention of getting to history class on time. Cuban aerobics, not for the faint of heart… three CUCs a month, not a bad deal, though after attending my first class I decided the gym can afford to cut people a deal because many don’t return after the first class… However, we returned this week with more confidence and a greater insight as to the extent to which the saying ‘white girls can’t dance’ is actually true.

Alison and I adventured to a local, open air market on Saturday, to change 10 CUCs into 240 pesos nacional, to purchase enough mango and guava to feed a flock of ducks, and to purchase a few flowers for our professor’s wife. Vendors were packed into this pavilion, rows and rows, selling the biggest mangos known to man. They are so large in fact that I hardly recognized the green, pink, and yellow freckled fruit. Mangos, some would say, the size of your face. Bananas are served fried on a dinner plate, so sugary sweet, that we could not help but buy a couple from the first offering vendor. The guavas are little stink bombs. Their smell is wonderful, but penetrating. Walking home with the flowers in hand, I experienced a sense of peace I have not yet experienced here. The five sunflowers, yet to open, were heavy in hand making their presence known. A smaller prepared bouquet nestled the sunflowers, complete with a daisy and other little blossoms of beautifully warm colors. I walked with purpose and confidence in the beauty of the flowers and the importance of their safe arrival in the residence. They found a home in an adapted water bottle vase.

In the states we often play a game called ‘good decision, bad decision.’ Now, as you can imagine, this game is only thought to be played when the group is on the verge of a very bad decision, and no matter the truth of the situation, most always the outcome is ‘good decision.’ It’s like a little input/output math machine… with one possible output, though I see the playing of the game as the mark of a very good adventure. This is to say that Alison and I had a grand adventure. Along the coast of Havana, running a stretch of about 3 or 4 miles, the famous and very popular street Malecon has found a home. The Malecon, the vehicular transportation functional part of the road, is separated from the sea by a wide sidewalk and a wall large enough on which to walk, or lounge, or sit and watch the waves crashing in 15 feet below. Coral lines the wall, and makes a natural diving board into clear patches of sea below. That is if you can climb down to the coral… Down huge old coral boulders, industrial waste from the days of maritime use, jagged and unkind to the knees, we climbed. When asked about swimming off the Malecon, our professor said that only 14 year old boys swim in the polluted, semi-dangerous waters… and just as he said those 14 year old boys were indeed swimming side by side with us, directing us where to jump from the coral to patches of reef free water. Trekking back to the residence, soaking wet, all the passer-byers knew exactly what we had done, and language barriers aside, we got Cuban street cred.

There is truth to be found in the search for balance…

“closer to fine”… the indigo girls

I trying to tell you something about my life

baby, give me insight between black and white

the best thing you’ve ever done for me

is to help me take my life less seriously

cause its only life after all

well darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable

and lightness has a call that’s hard to hear

and I wrap my fear around me like a blanket

I sailed my ship on safety till I sank it

I’m crawling onto shore

I went to the doctor

I went to the mountains

I look to the children

and I drank from the fountains

there’s more than one answer to these questions pointing you in a crooked line

the less I seek my source for something definitive

the closer I am to fine

peace.