Last week’s essay seems to have resonated with many of you. One of my co-workers, who is also a subscriber, mentioned that it inspired her to take up a pottery class she had been putting off for a while. I love to hear things like that! It encourages me to keep writing and sharing.
I also recently sent out an email announcing
. It’s not for everybody, but if you like learning about things that I find fascinating (which could be anything), then check it out. The first “episode” comes out on September 1st. Many thanks to all of you who have already subscribed!One of my favorite writers is Gabriel García Márquez. His prose is unparalleled in my mind. Like many other writers, he was a bit superstitious. Márquez had a superstition where he believed that if he even talked about his work in progress with someone, then inspiration would leave him. He feared the idea would fly away and germinate in someone else’s mind; someone that was more protective of it. So, when a friend would ask him, “What are you writing?”, he would make up an entirely completely different story. This, of course, confused his friends after the actual novel was published and it didn’t match the plot he had previously described.
In some ways, I have felt that way, too. I’ve felt that every single time I’ve shared a work in progress with someone, I’ve lost some of the magic. Feelings are important and valid, but they’re not necessarily always factual. Is there any evidence that an idea “flies” away if you talk about it? Not really. I know that, logically, but haven’t accepted it emotionally. Today, I want to demolish that fear.
Last week I shared how I reached out to about a dozen agents with my memoir and all I got back were crickets. Well, today I want to share the first chapter of that memoir with you. I think it’s good. I think it’s a story worth telling, and I hope you enjoy reading it. I’m not afraid of inspiration leaving me. In fact, I think sharing it publicly will only flame the fire to keep working on it. That’s what I’m believing and publicly declaring.
(The cool thing about sharing it online is that I can add links to Cuban phrases and traditions that may not be familiar to you.)
Prologue
AS THE SUN went down and before the airplane landed in Miami, I looked out the window and noticed a sea of lights. Entire buildings were lit up like Christmas trees made of solid rock and steel. The difference from just a few hours ago was stark. The previous night I stood in my mom’s 10th floor apartment in Havana and looked out at the city and all I could see was darkness. The entire city of 2 million people was blanketed by a dark that seemed to permeate every corner. A handful of buildings in the distance, such as hotels and other places where only tourists were allowed in, offered the only glimpses of light.
From the airplane, Miami seemed to be the place my parents hoped it would be, which is why they had sent me ahead without them. My great-grandmother sat next to me and on the aisle seat was my cousin Danay, still hurling whatever was left in her already empty stomach. Behind us were my aunt and uncle with my other cousin, Yinet, who was just as mesmerized by the city lights.
Suspended in the air, before the wheels had touched down in “La Yuma,” I was in a state of limbo; not technically on U.S. soil yet, but too far from Havana to still be in Cuba. I was somewhere in the middle in more ways that I could explain then.
Hours earlier, I witnessed a sea of people waving from behind a wiry fence as I was ready to board my plane in Havana. I couldn’t make out the faces in the crowd of all of those waving goodbye to their own family members, but I recognized my mom’s red shirt. I waved, still in disbelief that this was really happening. I felt numb, completely detached from reality. Walking on the runway and up the airplane stairs felt strange, as if my legs had a mind and a cadence of their own.
I turned around and took one last look before entering the cabin and I waved goodbye again to my parents and to Havana, not knowing when I would see any of them again.
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Chapter 1
IN MY EARLIEST memory I’m falling. I’m two years old and I roll off my parent’s bed. I was wrapped in a yellow blanket, which softened the blow when my body hit the wooden floor. Perhaps it’s because of that yellow blanket that I associate this memory with a warm glow, like an aura that surrounded me. Even though it was yet another humid day in Havana, I was also wearing long socks. Mom and Dad used to constantly argue over what Dad called Mom’s, “over protection.”
“It’s 37 degrees Celsius outside!” Dad, or Papa as I called him, would complain to Mama.
“I don’t want him to catch a cold,” Mama would reply, defiantly. Then she would remind my dad that any little cold could turn into a full-blown asthma attack. My dad was fully aware of this, since I inherited my asthma from him, but he was sure that her over protection was too much and had nothing to do with my condition.
“But it’s summer! Summer!” he would playfully yell.
A year before I was born my parents lost their first-born child. Yanelis lived for only a couple of hours. Mama was only 16 when she had her. Papa was only 19. Her pregnancy had been normal, until it wasn’t. Yanelis was born premature and in 1982 in Havana the doctors didn’t have the technology or the know-how to keep her alive. My mom remembers that she had long black hair and her skin was tan and she had my dad’s green eyes.
Tati, my mom’s mom, was convinced that Yanelis could have been saved if the doctors had been more urgent when Mama was rushed to the hospital with severe pain and bleeding. She was also sure that one of my dad’s female admirers had cursed my mom’s pregnancy, that the loss of that pregnancy was because of someone asking a palero to harm the baby.
A palero in the Santería religion is a priest that has the power to communicate and command dead spirits. People typically consult paleros when intending to harm someone else. Although my family were practicing Catholics, like most people in Cuba, they dabbled in Santería when the need to protect themselves or a loved one arose.
That afternoon, I cried when I fell from the bed, not because I was hurt, but because I was scared. I looked up and didn’t move for a second or two. I had woken up in mid-air, the few feet from the bed to the floor seemed eternal.
My dad picked me up and quickly examined me.
“Is he okay?” My mom asked, sitting up.
“He’s fine, Bertha” he told her. Then he looked at me. “You’re okay,” he said, and kissed me on the cheek. “Remember, men don’t cry.”
The only other memory I have of my parents together was when we went on a trip to Varadero. Varadero is a resort town about two hours away from Havana. As Cuban citizens, it was illegal for us to stay at any of the hotels that were catered to tourists, but luckily Papa had a friend who had a house not too far from the beach. All we had to do was get there. Transportation was not easy to come by, but someone’s friend had a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, which we rented after my grandfather offered a few beers and money in exchange.
My abuelo, Israel, whom I was named after, was a bar manager. This translated into him having more money than anyone else in the rest of our family, especially anyone on my mom’s side, and it also meant that he was an alcoholic. I don’t remember him not drinking. Usually he would have a Cuba Libre and other times he would just drink rum by itself. He was short and plump with dark hair that was quickly receding. And although he had a constant facial expression that seemed to be working out Euclidean geometry and made him seem unapproachable, he was actually very kind and a jokester.
That day seven of us piled up in the Chevy Bel Air, with my mom being the only one not from the Sanchez clan. We made the long and bumpy trip from Havana to Matanzas. The bustling city gave way to what Cubans call “Habana-Campo,” which is essentially the more rural part of Havana, until eventually we left the city altogether and made it to the next province.
Cuba is divided into 14 provinces, with Pinar del Río west of Havana and Matanzas just two hours west. My abuelo, and every person from Havana liked to say, “Havana is THE city, everything else is country.” Off to the country we were then.
Varadero Beach is a hidden gem. The water is so clear that you can see your legs and feet as you walk into the ocean. The sand is so fine that when I grabbed it, I could barely contain it. I remember that it so easily slipped through my hands and how warm and soft it was to the touch. Majestic palm trees surrounded the rental home like silent knights on duty.
We were going to spend the weekend there, but on day two no one could find me. The first place they looked was the beach. Had I wandered off when no one was looking? Or worse, had I gone deep into the ocean? I didn’t know how to swim.
“Irra!” My mom yelled, using my nickname, as she searched the house, while my dad was outside asking strangers if they had seen a four-year-old boy with dark black hair and hazel eyes.
“Irra!” she yelled one more time. She then opened a hallway closet. There I was, huddled with someone’s towel.
“I found him!” she yelled to the rest of my dad’s family. She turned to me with anger, but mainly filled with relief. “What are you doing in here?”
“I’m hiding from the air conditioner. It’s too cold.”
In Spanish, air conditioner would be translated as, “aire acondicionado,” but I was four and didn’t know how to say such a strange word, so I said, “aire cocinado,” which means “cooking” air. I was hiding from the cooking air is what I told her.
She laughed and picked me up and held me tight. I knew all about open windows and fans, but that was the first time I had ever experienced AC and I was freezing.
Later that day, I was looking forward to heading to the ocean with a floatie that my mom had bought me. It was a swan that had to be inflated. My dad grabbed it and sat on the edge of the bed and began inflating it. I stood there watching and at that moment, I thought my dad was the strongest man in the world. He sat there shirtless and only in his swim trunks and patiently blew air into the swan. I knew my dad was asthmatic because I had inherited that illness from him, which amazed me even more. How could he accomplish such an amazing feat? Before long, the swan was ready for me. I was elated. I could finally be in the water and not have to be held by anyone.
Moments after getting in the warm waters of the Atlantic ocean, my dad’s aunt Fefa decided she wanted to try holding onto the swan. Her blue eyes matched the ocean, but the redness around the pupils declared something else.
“It’s mine!” I said, holding on tight.
“It’s just for a second,” Papa said, tearing me away from the floatie and holding me in his hands.
My very inebriated great-aunt Fefa pounced on the swan, as she laughed with drunken delight.
Within a few seconds, her long nails penetrated some part of the floatie and the entire swan began to deflate in front of my eyes. I started to cry, but my dad looked at me with a stern look in his eyes, so I stopped. He thought I started to cry because I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the beach without being held, but I was actually more upset because of how hard I knew he had worked on that thing. Because of my weekly severe asthma attacks, part of me thought that we only had a finite amount of air available to us, that if we used it all up, then asthma would kill us. My dad had just wasted a lot of his air on making me happy, only for aunt Fefa to ruin it. She never apologized, not even when sober. In fact, she thought it was funny that it even occurred to her that she could even hang on to such a tiny thing made for kids.
I never liked her much after that.
Thanks so much for reading. Let me know in the comments what fears you want to confront or what’s holding you back from doing so.
My hope with this chapter was to set up various themes throughout the memoir; family separation, the syncretism of religions, the belief in the mystical and how it merged with every day life and of course, family in general. Let me know also what you thought of Chapter 1.
Also, this is my 100th post! Thank you so much for being here!
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Loved the first chapter. The prologue sets up tension well. What caused the move? When will the family be reunited? The characters come to life. I especially enjoyed the moments with your father. Can't wait to read more. (Also, thank you for turning me on to Substack. I started posting myself.
Ah, Israel! I remember commenting one time that I would love to hear your story. And now it has begun. Will we get more chapters? Have you considered serializing your memoir here on Substack as a paid option? From what I’ve read in the prologue and chapter 1, I want to continue reading. If I can’t buy the book yet, paying for it here is a great alternative!