“But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?”
-Albert Camus
It’s Simple, Really
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Tag Archives: higher purpose
Do It
Go all the way with it.
Do not back off.
For once, go all the goddamn way with what matters.
-Ernest Hemingway
Someday
Conditions are never perfect. “Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you. If it’s important to you and you want to do it “eventually,” just do it and correct course along the way. -Timothy Ferriss
Cuba: Days Eight & Nine
“Ever Onward to Victory”
Our final two days were back in Habana.
Impressions:
Yes, Cuba is poor in materials and even natural resources.
Tourism seems to be its most stable and successful business.
Outside Habana, the country is a beautiful island with hills, mountains, rivers, waterfalls, biospheres, chickens roaming everywhere and roosters waking you at 4:45 AM.
People outside walking, walking, walking, hitching a ride when they can, rarely a private car in sight.
Food extremely limited in variety but served with pride in generous portions.
Music.
Dance.
Heat. Humidity.
Kindness. Smiles.
Feeling, not like a tourist. No begging. No hassles.
Cubans love their country and see its flaws. They want a better standard of living but don’t want to be “too commercial like America.”
Cubans we met love Americans and think our two governments are “silly and we need to be friends.”
Cubans love Fidel and know he’s “holding on too much to the revolution.”
Cubans love Raoul and “believe will take us forward.”
They are proud of their schools and medicine.
Stay in a Casa Particulares with Cuban families. The hospitality is enriching to the soul.
Eat in a palador, not restaurants for the same reason.
Swim in the sea.
Hike in the hills.
Walk the tobacco farms.
Learn the revolucion, Bay of Pigs, and the embargo from their perspective.
Buy books written from their perspective.
Leave behind as much as you can: lotions, sunscreens, toilet paper, mosquito repellant, clothes, tips… the staff at the casas appreciate it greatly.
Listen as much as you can.
Ask questions.
Learn as much Spanish as you can and speak it.
Leave behind your kindness and compassion.
Take with you a better understanding that people are people.
We really want the same things.
Cuba: Day Six
Trinidad, Cuba.
The first time I’d ever heard of Santeria and seen the Casa Templo de Santeria: Yemaya was on the Departures TV series when Canadian travelers, Scott Wilson and Justin Lukach, walked into what appeared to be a regular storefront business on the cobbled streets of Trinidad.
What they found was a black “doll” dressed in all white sitting on a chair in the middle of an empty room. She represents the sea goddess, Yemaya.
It’s startling not just because of what it is, but the room has an energy and calmness at the same time. A very palatable feeling.
The high ceiling, white walls and blue fish and water paintings created a calm and cooler atmosphere contrasting heavily with the heat, humidity and ruggedly cobblestone streets of this UNESCO cited Spanish Colonial city located in the southern, center part of Cuba.
Our group had an appointment with the Temple Priest to learn about this religion that mixes traditions and beliefs brought by West African slaves and over years, mixed with Spanish Colonial Catholicism.
More than 70% of Cubans practice this religion. Many come to the Priest for advice about work, love, decisions to be made… the advice is typically a mix of prayer and rituals centered around plants, fruits, vegetables and animals.
The Temple is closed on Sunday because the Priests attend mass in the Catholic Church.
This is when I wish I had started my Spanish lessons earlier so that I could return and converse with the Priest. Through our translator I learned the Priests only wear white and the people I had seen in the streets in all white were either devotees of the religion or studying to become Priests. Unfortunately, my infant-level Spanish prevented me from further engagement.
Dady, our lead guide had given us all street maps of Trinidad because “the streets all have two names and are confusing because they follow no pattern.”
Boy, was she right.
You learn early that the center of this small community is at the higher elevation and our casa was “down the slope.” Streets and cobbled and challenging to walk. My husband and I were lost on our afternoon walk and about to head in the completely wrong direction when our son spotted us and put us on the right course.
Hot. Humid. A much poorer community than Cienfuegos the day before.
The peak tourist season had ended which I liked, but it made for empty streets and empty bars.
Our casa was “under construction” and more “rustic” than others. The family, however, was as warm and kind as we had learned to expect. We had lunch there and were served our first treat of Cuban helado. My husband had both chocolate and vanilla.
He and our son met up with others in the group that evening to find a hotel to watch the NBA playoffs.
I stayed in the room to write and read my book on Che I’d found in the town earlier that day.
First Thought
First thoughts have tremendous energy. It is the way the mind first flashes on something-
Natalie Goldberg
The Longest Path
The longest path is the one between you and your loved one after the call saying that he is dying.
Idleness
“Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.” – Virginia Woolf
Be Boundless
If we forgive life for not being what we told it to be, or expected, or wished, or longed for it to be, we forgive ourselves for not being what we might have been also. And then we can be what we are, which is boundless.
-John Tarrant
Embrace Difficulties
The Brook Would Lose Its Song If You Removed The Rocks- Brook Would Lose Its Song If You Removed The Rocks-
American Proverb
