She was named Havana.

I get ripped apart thinking about her, even a year later.

I read and meditate on her every morning. Biographical accounts, nautical recollecitons, economic analysis. I try to logically pry my mind off of Havana. A whispering dream. The maverick sailors, the pirates, the hurricanes. The distant crowns and their thirst for gold, rum, slaves, cotton. Those crowds are still there truth be told- with less gold and more rum. The city has puttered along- salted, passionate and azure and unaware. Or ominiscent. I don’t know I’m in love and with no doubt that at this time in her history, I am un-remembered.

This haunts me every morning for thirty minutes. I want a connection. By the time I arrive at the office I am back to normal. Jealously of Habeneros and fifteenth century pirates dissolves by the time I am drinking coffee.

I walked across Havana- that’s how I fell in love with her. I began at a faded light blue, concrete zoo where I could see a a wilting ostrich and comatose water buffalo from the street. Screaming children, like at any zoo, were present. They’re probably still there. So are my thoughts. The terror is long gone- I was actually terrified to walk to my AirBnb from the bus depot by the zoo. I forget that part. I forget I used a compass and printed Google maps to navigate. I rememeber I knew if I kept walking North, I would eventually hit water and could reliably head East. I only had printed maps for the East side of the city and needed to find those streets to gain my bearings. I saw a major chunk of Havana this way. I fell in love with Havana this way.

It was the sun, in seedy-esque neighborhoods where everyone was happily walking back from unseen tiendas, slowly swinging bags of plantains and mangos and bread like they have for the past three hundred years. White gringos wandering through like we have for the past five hundred years. I wonder how many of my European predecessors returned home and never stopped thinking about the island. I never once felt in danger or nervous, for the record.

Are you tired of reading this story?

I struggled and marvelled and toddled past concrete monolith parking lots Castro waxed and waned over.

Eventually I rounded a final curve through the war-torn appearance of the barrios and was rewarded with a delightful marble plaza full of an art festival. And tourists. There was an international French club on the corner and posh little cafes tucked behind blackened iron filigree. If I turned around, I could wander back into the filthy, melting seafood corner store. Havana surprises you that way…all curves presenting into seemingly endless new views.

My most vivid memory was eating a seventy-five cent pizza while watching a gorgeous blonde on a date with a gorgeous man and this is not a singular memory…Cubans are in love all over the place. In their slummy, dark, war-stricken looking city they were smiling and en masse milling at the city centers at the plazas and fruit stands. The people of a notorious, mystical port town are happy. I asked… I talked to fishermen and docotors and the security guard at chapel who opened conversation after I asked the age of the building. “Good government, bad government, we smile”. They say that.

My most vivid memory is actually wandering amdist dune and gray concrete walls intermeshed into corridors intersecting at 90 degrees, regularly punctuated by perfect rectangular cut-outs, the doors. I ducked into one. The roofs shot sky high-streching, tall arabic-style abodes that allow heat to rise and air to circulate around an internal, central courtyard. This one was an artist’s studio. The muse was a crazy cat lady. The walls were filled with massive works depicting a curvaceous, menopausal woman smoking and lounging languorously among her fat tabbys. Think heavy oil smeared in vivid colors on probably hand-woven canvas. Unexpected. Marvelous. I was smitten.

…

Reading about Havana for thirty minutes every morning fills me with nostalgia for something I barely knew. It is vividly striking how unfulfilled it feels to settle back to normalcy after a searing, far-away love affair. Your mind betrays you. I live in lost fantasies.

And I don’t know how it is supposed to be. Do I stay chasing career and stability and funds for when I’m sixty with a family or do I follow these loves across oceans. This isn’t the first time I’m fallen in love with salty, passionate, azure town. Havana was just the most encompassing…as she should be.

I don’t wonder what kept pirates and conqueres at sea for years, stuck on a small boat tossed by high waves. The open ocean broken by verdent coastlines dotted with slippery, hazy heated, cobblestone harbors. Minds lost in fantasy, praying for satiation.

Havana will always be there, like she always has. This drives me crazy.

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