The Beach in Cuba
When asked about our move to Cuba my sons always respond with ………… our house will be right on the beach! People even react to me in a similar way especially when they see the photos. It is believed to be some kind of Nirvana living right on the beach and my cynical side (whom I am trying to keep under wraps more and more) says yeah great but that wears off in a couple of weeks …… and I won´t have internet. If a psychic had told me 10 years ago that I would be living in a house on the Caribbean with my Guatemalan husband and 3 children I would have asked for my money back or paid them more (not quite sure). Now that I am thinking about it, I did visit a psychic once when I was living in Hong Kong and contrary to my cynical self, really enjoyed it as well as finding it quite useful.
In Hong Kong in 97 post handover days, I didn´t live on the beach but right on top of the Peak looking down over the city. It was a turning point in my life. I was with the wrong man, still doing the wrong job and living in what I called (at the time) the armpit of capitalism. Most of the Hong King Chinese made it quite clear that they were more interested in money than making friends with me, and I longed for the Europe I had left behind. I ended up hanging out with (cocaine-fuelled) British journalists, French ex pats working in wine and fashion, and an eclectic selection of artists with their Asian girlfriends. I refused to hang out with the bankers that my ex knew. It was a strange year that unhinged me slightly, mainly to do with the toxic relationship I was in. Anyway, one day I found myself catching the ferry to one of the islands to visit a psychic. What have I got to lose I thought? She was not a little chinese woman as I expected but an Australian about the same age as my mother and actually, bizarrely looking a little bit like my mother. I spent 3 hours with this woman and was intrigued that she seemed to know a lot about me. She was quite radical and told me that I had to change my man, my job, my country. Quite risky really as for all she knew I had just started a new life with said man. I caught the ferry back to Hong Kong island feeling calm and cleansed and changed on the way to go and see The Opera, La Boheme. Needless to say that all things she warned me about did change, it was hard to get on that plane alone back to London, apply to go back to University and put myself through a masters, buy my own flat, keep away from more destructive men, start a new career and then further down the line, get on a plane to Guatemala. But I did it.
I feel as though I am at another turning point in my life right now and I want to seize this moment too! Yes I know I will be back to dial up connection internet, no skype or much facebook, no supermarkets, no shopping malls …… but I have to see this as a good thing. I know I need to take my life to another spiritual level for myself and my family and yes maybe my lifelong goal of trying to meditate will happen in Cuba sitting in my garden listening to the waves. Or maybe I´ll just turn into a cigar smoking, rum drinking, bar dancing lush ………….. hmmm. Or maybe something inbetween.
A message just arrived to remind me of what is good about facebook, a friend from another great turning point in my life; in Buenos Aires, when I was discovering that I was going to be a mother. It was Marianita who I woke up to show my pregnancy test, it was she I dragged to a health food restaurant to sit and contemplate in a trance-like state my soon to be changing life. Special times in a special city. One day I will write about my first wonderful month of motherhood in a city that opened its arms to me and my little panza.
Anyway so far as to say that I will not have much time to waste on facebook, maybe one day a week I will check in. I just tried to trim down my friends list (harder than I thought) remembering that we do still have those old fashioned communications called emails and I will have this secret blog ………….