Ay, papi, Cuba... My free Cuba!

I leave Cuba with a strange feeling. The feeling that I am missing something. That I am missing something to get to know, to see, to taste, to feel. I don´t know, but I feel I am missing something to be lived here. I leave with an incomplete feeling. Saying I have loved Cuba is not what comes to my head in the first place, to be honest. However, I feel something special. That kind of feeling that only those places that really get deep into you leave on you when you set off.

Out of all the countries and cultures I have gotten to know in my life, Cuba is, without any doubt, the most curious and complex one. Almost unreachable. I wonder whether actual Cuban people really get to understand all the ins and outs of their own culture.

I have spent two weeks debating myself between the dichotomy of "I like it - I don´t like it (so much)" and I remain in the same confusion or worse.

When I reach the conclusion that "EVERYTHING" in this country, even the apparently most arbitrary and altruist act has a price... there you go! I find myself face down with the exception that confirms the rule. Cause yeah, the rule exists, I would say. But it seems a beautiful face and an honest smile have much more power than I thought. 

One thing I have not managed to get used to is to feeling like a "walking dollar". It is a real pity because I know I have missed the opportunity to enrich myself in conversations with many people. This, just in order to avoid having to face, for the 20th time in the same day, the rip-off of the tourist or the great question: "And would you not have a spare dollar?, a cuc?". Seriously, I wish I could help everyone, nuns did a good job with me at school, but I can´t.

I leave with my self-esteem skyrocketing, that is true. Even though, that hasn´t got much merit in Cuba. They already say it, for Cuban men, women, music and rum are the priority. I got it clear. Anyway, although it may get to be a bit saturating sometimes, I think I am gonna miss so much masculine attention from time to time, hehe.

I have not met "my Cuban man", against best omens. But I must admit I have seen the most attractive men here, with those sensual looks and that seemly natural playing. Cuba stars my list. I am in to the chocolate world, and if it is with a Latin rhythm, even more.

But what puts the most delicious icing to the Cuban cake, together with that joyful cadence, the charm and the sparkle in the eyes of its people, is music. It has me hooked, like a hard drug would. Unbelievable, I already feel the withdrawal and have not left yet. Cuba is a bomb of contained art. Spectacular. I have seen some of the best things of my life here. I have discovered Cuban jazz, that makes me quiver and lifts my soul. Jazz, salsa, fusion music, Afro-Cuban and even the-so-rejected-by-me regeton, turns me on in this island.

I know it won´t take me long to come back here cause, anyway, Cuba has got me hooked up.

Playas del este. La Habana, Republic of Cuba

Being unreasonable creates miracles...

Bye, bye, Mexico lindo. These two weeks have past by so fast! However, my trip could have not started better. I would have never thought that a 3-day course, like the one I´ve taken in Mexico, could change my life so much. I have learnt more than in months.

Among it all, I have learnt that my arrogance impoverishes and limits me and, yes, I am much more arrogant than I allow myself to admit. Well,... watch out with me! ;)

I have learnt that, in our learning-to-survive-in-life, we build "our personality" and which, we assume as natural-born when, in reality, it is a simple set of habits, learnt behaviours and mental proceses. Period. And, therefore, it can be changed. So, I can be the person I really feel I wanna be and makes me happy being, no matter who/how I have been till now. Whoever/however I commit myself to be like I can... my imagination goes crazy with so many possibilities!

I have learnt that, with age, we grow further and further away from being authentic. We fill our backpack with stones from the past and anchor it to our subconscious without noticing it. We get so used to its load that we stop feeling it. Life, in its day to day, comes full of "reasons" not to do, say or feel so many things. We chain ourselves, our present and our future up to the past. We become prisioners of a past that, in reality, is nothing more than a bunch of interpretations we make from what is really happening. It just does not exist, we simply invent it on our own.

I had never told my dad how much I love him and how proud I am of the education both, my mum and dad, have given to my brother and me. How much I value how fortunate I am in my life thanks to all their sacrifices and love. I had NEVER told that to my dad but neither even to my mum in an honest and authentic way. Same with my brother. I always stayed in the cliché and the joke. It may well have being 20 years since the last time I was so authentic with them as when I called them up during the course.

Why had I never done it before? Because of the countless reasons we all find not to do it. Reasons not to be honest, reasons not to be spontaneous, reasons not to express our feelings honestly, reasons not to give love, reasons not to do anything that may imply love and, sometimes, even reasons not to feel. Cause we have "always" behaved in a specific way and we have assumed that no way we can get out of that behavioural pattern. In reality, just because of FEAR. Fear to what others may think if we change unexpectedly. Fear to be vulnerable, fear to be rejected. Fear, fear, fear which, just like the past, does not exist outside our heads, it is our own pure creation. Nothing more.

I have learnt that "being unreasonable", not following our "reasons", creates miracles. It turns our world over, yes, that same world we think never changes and will never change. Well, you see, it changing only depends on ourserlves. From now on, I am unreasonable and unexpected. To the hell with all my reasons, no matter how hard I may find it, cause it is... Now, I just need to learn how to shut the unstoppable reasoning of this crazy mind of mine. But I am commited to it, so I will!! ;)

Sculpture. Museum of  Modern Art MACO. Oaxaca, Mexico.

I knocked it off...

Oh, well, yes, it was true in the end that I was quitting my job and was going for a walk to the other side of the ocean... Oh, my!

I can imagine what a the revelation it must have been for Albert Camus to reach the conclusion that "Life is the sum of all your decisions". It seems simple and the truth is that he didn't discovered the world with it, but it has taken me 33 years to be actually conscious of what it really means. But thanks God, cause there are many who leave this world, sad and frustrated, without ever understanding it.

Without even giving it a thought, we tend to accept our life submissively as the inevitable consequence of our environment's (others') decisions, expectations and circumstances. We feel ourselves as the capricious life's puppets, with its swinging, its come's and go's, before which we have no voice nor vote. I have spent twenty-something years moaning about my "unfair" life; curious, considering how fortunate and lucky I am. As we say in Spain, I have a big flower in my bum (my lucky star is always shinning!). However, in spite of it, I always preferred to muffle myself up with the shit I was covering my eyes with... perverse mind.

To be honest, I think EVERYTHING in life happens because of a reason and what is worse (or better, I would say) is that most of what happens to us is a pure consequence of our own decisions (of action or inaction). The "unfair" life I was moaning about, I was cooking it just myself, unaware of it.

So, the time has come for me to say "bye, bye" to my submissive and passive attitude and focus on watering my flower and creating the life I want for myself. Goodbye to a job that does not enrich me and head first to what really fulfills me, no matter what it takes (Oh, yeah!). Although, I know, it won't take much, I just know... hehe, yes, optimism stays with me!

Backpacking now till the end of the year, open to whatever Life brings me around Latinamerica. And from January on... much more and much better!! :)

Mural in Hostal Dos Fridas y Diego. México DF.