Fine by me

That same Venetian storm

It didn’t take me all that long to realize I was creating a problem. The tour members were not listening to Elizabetta, and she’s my favorite local guide in all of Europe. Apparently, the sight of their guide standing in the downpour, soaked through to the subdermal tissue, was distracting.

“No, thank you for the offer, really, but I don’t need to crowd under your wee umbrella with you, I’m fine out here.” What’s wrong with that answer? I didn’t get the reason, they didn’t get the rationale.

Venice wears water well

I don’t know if it’s my nature or my nurture, my aquatic affiliation or growing up in a drought, but I have no problem with being wet. At least, not when it’s warmer than frigid and I have the prospect of changing clothes within the next couple hours. This was Venice, African wind acquiring Mediterranean moisture to rain romantic drops of tangible Venetianity on my dry self. Warm water down the spine and across the mosaic. Drips off the ears of man and lion. The tickling timpani of tiny impacts on shoulder and canal. I loved it.

That monsoon on the edge of the Nepali jungle

So when it rains when I’m traveling, knock on dry wood, it’s not the biggest problem for me. In general. I do remember the Nepali monsoon that was so incessant, my bag began to mold and stink. And yes, I remember the Sri Lankan monsoon that was so profound that it left the skin of my thigh beginning to mold too. That was just gross. Let’s skip that story. Because there’s another advantage to rain. For photographers and romantics, anyway.

It’s clear as celluloid to me that Hollywood is off its rocker in a couple dimensions. Their assertion that women are not allowed to age, must look like Barbie and have just the right touch of insouciance to be sexy, but not enough intelligence to be scary, is friggin ridiculous. And we’re, what, a decade or two into the assumption that a man’s stomach should look like a topographic map of Colorado. But one thing they do get right: wet streets just look better.

Panama Dock

“Gee, fellow adapted-for-film character, I don’t remember it raining during any of the previous hours, but it sure is moist out here as we finish our conversation, and damn it looks good.”

So waking up this morning, after a surprisingly terrible night’s sleep, hoisting the blinds to find wet pavement outside my window, droplets clinging to the austerity of a Japanese maple in winter, I feel immediately relaxed. This cup of tea is suddenly pure ambrosia, and yes, yes I will take the fuzzy slippers today.

Happy rinsings to all of you, and may that next good book be close at hand.

Things like this still happen in Havana

The thing about Cuba is all the streets are so...Cuban. Roaming about, I often feel like large cities belong to the country of Citylandia, removed from the nations that surround them, but Havana? Havana is Havana, pure and simple and fragrant and musical and crumbly in the most beautiful way imaginable. To be honest, it’s rather preposterous, how Cuban la Habana is.

A piece of that (shall we call it Cubanity?) is that prime locations in city centers have not been monopolized by the monied class, especially not the international set of extra-home owners who are rarely even there (no offense, London) or chain-stores that feed without fertilizing. So along the Prado you find abuelas and abuelos, tio and tia live down near Obispo, and lining the malecon...well, those buildings are too salt-devoured to support much accommodation at the moment, but the point stands. It was on one of these streets in Havana, Cubanic in every unconscious detail, that we stepped into an average-looking house and found the studio of an internationally renowned artist.

Was he pretentious? Distant, too busy to talk, or irritated by our distraction? Not remotely. He was friends. For years with our organizer, and now with us as well. We mused about his studio and gathered around his table, having a shockingly normal conversation that just happened to touch on art, culture, and what it means to be Cuba.

That can happen in Cuba, or at least, that can happen on an Altruvistas & Ethical Traveler Interactive Arts Delegation where we benefit from 25 years of experience in the country.

Of course, we’re not the only outfit down there. Not by a long shot. Just a couple days ago I got an email from The Nation Magazine advertising their trip, which runs at nearly the same time as ours. Now, I love The Nation, and I’m sure they’ll have a great time, but I couldn’t help noticing that their trip doesn’t seem as connected as ours is. And in case you were wondering, theirs is substantially more expensive, for less days.

I don’t mean this to be a salespitch. My goal was to tell you more about that artist, but I’m overflowing with gratitude that I get to go back down there with this group, deeply honored at getting to lead it, and eager to see who is coming with me.

Are you? The link, for you or your friend who’s always wanted to go, is here.

A love song, in Munich

The sun wasn’t as warm as memory promised it would be. The grass perhaps thinner, mud between the stalks, and itchy on my calves, which felt awkward in shorts after so long under professional trousers. I wanted so badly to enjoy my afternoon off in Munich, the city that most surprised me with it’s beauty when this new job introduced us. So I’d returned to the English Gardens, green and liquid among the concrete realities of urban modernity, seeking the easy summer joy I’d found there last time, when my friend/mentor and I had earned the respect of our Teutonic neighbors with our beer garden food trays.

“You are going to eat all of zis?” They inquired. “No, zis is not possible.” They informed. “Sehr gut!” They soon praised.

But this time, supper was solitary, crushed granola bar dug out of backpack bottom. And no bicycle, just the implacability of my own feet, again, still, always, forward because it’s easier than stopping. But now I’d paused, by a river that didn’t care, with no one to talk to about it. My nature, my vagabond urges, my desire to connect with the planet that threatens to disconnect me from my people, felt closer than my kin. And the water wouldn’t talk to me.

But this age, this semiconductor madness, it has its perks, and the phone in my pocket connected me with the woman back home. The woman I missed. The partner I loved. The deeper dream I wanted to reach. To reconcile with my wanderlust. And now the setting sun wasn’t abandoning, it was saluting. The air wasn’t sucking the warmth from my flesh, it was enlivening my skin. I wasn’t alone and forgotten, I was adrift in a city, the way I love to be.

My steps into the park had been dragging, an effort to reach someplace where Good would start. My steps out were light, aware that Good starts within. I was feeling that flow when I reached the musician.

I'd passed him before, but busy seeking the melody of happiness in my headphoned isolation, so had nodded hello and kept on. Now I took the earbuds out and listened to him. He was good. Soul and skill. I dropped a euro of gratitude in his case, and we got to talking, sharing who we were that day, until another voice spoke up.

"Excuse me," it said in a soft German accent. "I just wanted to sank you for your playing. She likes it very much."

The smiling man was pushing a stroller. Inside, an infant daughter watched the guitar player with a focus that seemed enlightened. Her infant’s inability to form facial expressions left her focus somehow pristine, unmuddled by self-consciousness or the details of communication. Just pure attention, approaching easy adoration. The joy coming from this tiny vulnerable creature felt invincible.

"Would you like another?" asked the guitarist. Then he sang her a love song, smooth and sweet, as evening light caressed down through the trees, which stood around to watch this tiny, perfect child listen to a musician’s harmony and care. And I, privileged witness, could only feel that the world was again in its perfect orbit.

(The guitar player can be found here.)

Who wants to go to Cuba?

That I was sitting in the restaurant, soaked to the seams, was not the surprising part of lunch.

That it had begun raining as soon as I had to leave for a social appointment, for the third time in a row, revealing the clear correlation between California’s drought problems and my mediocre social schedule, was also not the surprising part of lunch.

No, the surprise was when Jeff Greenwald, friend, writer, and executive director of Ethical Traveler asked me a question:

“Would you like to lead this year’s Interactive Arts Tour to Cuba?”

Would I like to lead that tour, for Ethical Traveler, to Cuba? No. I would like to get warm, dry, and eat lunch. I would ballywell love to lead that tour!

The 2014 version of that trip was when I first went to Cuba, nine days of paintings, sculptures, and photographs in a country that values and prioritizes art far more than some others I could mention. Nine days of warm Caribbean air, fresh mint mojitos, and pulse-pleasing samba beats. Or was it jazz rhythms and savory ropa vieja under that vibrant island sun? In Cuba, it isn’t a question of either/or, it feels like a world of even/more.

We live in a standardized world, Ici Paris in Tbilisi and KFC on Katmandu corners, but in Cuba we find, among the sensations and stimulations, inspiration and perspiration, alternatives. Alternative philosophies, techniques, and interpretations. Different issues and topics, advantages and disadvantages. Over there, drugs are not a problem but finding toilet paper is. There is nearly nothing to fear from crime but don’t expect too many opposition editorials. And if you love the golden arches of an ominous marketing clown, better stay home, there’s no Mickey Dee’s down there.

That’s not to say that we’ll spend our week in some kind of primordial Eden, untouched by the modern world. Tourism has been alive and well in Cuba for decades, it’s just that America is only now signing the forms. I’ve been back to Cuba without this tour organizer’s expertise, and the show-up-and-see experience in Cuba is a challenging one. I am a devoted lover of independent travel, but in my experience, Cuba is better seen with assistance.

So I’m going to make sure I’m ready to offer that assistance, to help 10-16 people have as wonderful of a first exposure to the country as I did. Now, the question is, are you interested in being one of those people? Because as of now there are still spots in the delegation. If you’re interested in grabbing yours, check out the Ethical Traveler page for the trip, here.