the currents will shift

I am preparing to depart. I shall slide diagonally across the ocean - heading for Cuba. An apt step for those in the know.

What I know of Cuba is a mass of vague impressions and great expectations. Fragments of sound, and names without meaning absorbed from news reports playing in my background.

Places like the Bay of Pigs and Guantánamo. Inhabited by characters calling themselves Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and Elian González. A place of socialist icons exported to be sold on souvenirs. Along with cigars, heels and missiles. And revolution, revolution, revolution.



But I have a guide who will lead me through his memoir. I will ingest his memories and breathe them as my own. Step inside another skin to live for a time. To walk in his steps, through his country. Maybe some of these fragments will fall into place.

the circumnavigator