cuba, tomorrow

This is toronto, a place I have been, streets I have seen, corners I remember, the walk to chinatown familiar, the trees, the air.. Kensington market seems to map onto the story my friend told me about her walk through the neighborhood, wandering into a reggae-soaked basement, leaving with a black-stone bracelet given to her by the owner. And yesterday was ann arbor where I no longer even see the streets and corners and buildings when walking through them, can't remember when I didn't know what it looked like, how it felt. It is too familiar, my feet know it, no longer need my eyes, my eyes go other places, into my mind, into the town that has been created there, into that ann arbor's yesterday, the day before, tomorrow.



My expectations of places I've never seen are formed by pictures, pictures created from stories. Maybe you told me this story, maybe I read it, maybe I saw another picture and told it to myself. Before a few months ago, I knew no one who had been to Cuba, read little except for a few books on Cuban Santeria, had seen only one movie about the island in 7th grade spanish class, heard only severely diluted stories, mostly of farming and the organic 'revolution' there. I now know one person who has lived there for a few months, read a few more books, seen a few more pictures. Slowly, I no longer swim through blank space when trying to imagine Cuba, what it looks like, how it feels. The country has become a flat, sketchy image. Still, though, how much can pictures, maps of places, or movements of people color themselves in the darkness of a stranger's imagination? For sometimes read histories and second-, third- hand stories still seem so distant, I can't quite translate them into livable space..


Cuba, I expect you to be bright with a dusty tint, warm, with toothpaste air. Everything more, I'll wait to til tomorrow.