There is a beauty that transcends the physical that lives and breathes in this place. As I walk the streets, often I get glimpses into the reality of life here.  Not the tourist trap reality of perfect pretty young Cubans working in nice upscale restaurants, but the real Cuba behind the facade of everything always being perfect and beautiful.

I find myself often wandering down side streets here that call to me to explore new territory, take a new road, and let this place reveal itself to me more in every moment.

I get little internal snapshots, memories I can never forget that touch me here through the open doors and windows that let me get glimpses in. 

Images that run through me months after I’ve seen them.  I see bodies slumped over in old government delegated metal rockers, heads hanging low, age and despair hanging in the ethers.  I’m met by children playing in the streets, joyously running barefoot over cobblestone streets. I connect momentarily with women, barely stuffed into their tattered clothes, passing each other on the streets, sharing secrets that only they will ever know.  There is suffering, there is joy, there is struggle, but everywhere there is life. 

The Breath of Cuba is so alive here, it’s whispering to me from side streets and singing from makeshift churches, it calls me in the night under perfect starry skies and seduces me with deep sensual grooves that call my body to the dance over and over again.