One year.

With spring comes the open windows to morning air. The sounds of the cars rushing outside, the feeling of the yet-to-warm breeze moving through the living room--it all makes me think of Cuba. Think of the view out my bedroom window overlooking the malecón and the waves crashing upon it (sometimes platonically, placidly, sometimes with rage). Think of Cuban mornings when I couldn't wait to begin my day because to live it was to become part of it, part of why that country and those people are so unforgettable.

It's been one year since my last blog entry. An entire year has passed with its seasons and challenges, yet I can't go a day without thinking of Cuba. An hour. Sometimes, a moment. I can't remember what it was like to not always remember something so other than what there is around me now.

I drink tea instead of Cuban coffee in the morning. I eat breakfast alone. I take a shower that is always the same temperature, day after day. I get what I pay for, and I rarely love any of it.

In my Modernist literature class we just read The Big Money by John Dos Passos. In it, the character Margo goes to Havana and stays in Vedado. The Vedado. Our Vedado. Or must it now be Their Vedado? And I read the descriptions of the city and wanted to crawl out of my skin into that other world that I once knew to be real. Sometimes I will come across photos of the places we used to walk and I feel so desperate to be there and stay there and always be a part of there. But I know that's not possible, and only was even a notion for three short months. And while everyone else around is so stable and placed in where they are now, I let my mind wander to plane tickets bought and arriving at the José Martí airport again.

I'm not complaining. I had the greatest fortune of visiting an incredible country and meeting people that I will forever hold in my heart. I will never go through a day when I do not think of the ways things are, and the way things could be, both for the Cubans and the Americans. I will never turn down an opportunity to meet someone new, and I will never assume that anyone is not worth meeting. Cuba gave me that. I will never not wear an article of clothing because it is too outrageous. Cuba gave me that, too. And Cuba showed me a life worth waking up in the morning, a life of open windows, bright colors, and enough love to stand the heartbreak of daily life.

I don't know where I'm headed in my life, but I know that I will always carry my time in Cuba with me. That ache I feel when I'm reminded of my mornings by the malecón may never fully go away, and I hope it won't. It's the ache of the most beautiful, difficult, love-filled time in my life. Wherever I'm headed, I know that I will fight to make the world a better place, and for people to feel less afraid to know one another, and know the consequences of their fear. This is what Cuba has taught me to do, and has given me the determination to do.

That island's a people fighting to stay afloat, and it's up to us, those whose love for her we carry, to fight for her like she (undoubtedly, fiercely) would for us, like she (gracefully, achingly) has done for so many years.