mikey and i are back home, snuggled into our white house with the boys, after a week away to cuba. more than anything, i'm thankful for the time with just my boy. there's nothing quite like being in an unreachable, inaccessible part of the world with the one person you'd actually choose to be stuck on a deserted island with. nothing.
we arrived on saturday with no agenda except to wander. on foot, we moseyed up and down, in and out of streets lined with hundred plus year old buildings that were so hauntingly beautiful. not abandoned, although they looked it, and not updated for decades. people outside, all the time. music and chatter filled the streets.
with full bellies we made our way back for reading and a fuzzy baseball game on the tv. we sat with the doors flung open, able to see straight into our neighbors' homes and they into ours. the sea breeze took me back to standing on a similar balcony some twenty months ago in puerto rico with three little blonde haired boys ...
[a snippet from my journal]
I lack the words to write creatively or beautifully about Cuba. So, instead, I'll try to depict Cuba as it is. Cuba is raw. The smells (very human, very unfiltered), the sights (muy vieja y linda), the culture. The people will tell you that life for them is very hard in Cuba. There is no money and very limited resources. But, through the thick sadness there is a contented-ness lacking in our own lives. We've asked ourselves the question, "Who is more free?"
so, so beautiful, these buildings are. like living ruins.
ReplyDeletethe snippet from your journal gives me chills, and so much to ponder.