Cargo

the weight I carry

Photo credit: Erin O’Brien (author)

There is a yellow t-shirt hanging in my closet in Chicago that proclaims in large, simple white font: actually, I’m in Havana. The shirt is too small for me, but I bought it anyway. I liked the way the word “actually” was in all lower-case letters, as if the phrase were just waiting to be tacked onto the end of any sentence. Because no matter what else I’m doing…actually, I’m in Havana.

The shelf under the shirt hides the items I’m constantly stockpiling for my next trip. I keep a list in the Notes app on my phone, adding to it as I think of things I know my husband needs as well as things I find myself wishing I had, but can’t easily get, when I’m there with him. Some items on the list are constant, and I have them memorized: bacon, tuna, salted butter, ham, La Llave coffee. A box of the full-size Snickers Jesús loves and will ration, eating one every two or three days until I arrive again to restock them. Other items are one-time-only purchases that represent a gradual chipping away at my goals for updating the house there: a new blender, an electric tea kettle, silicone potholders, percale sheets, memory foam pillows.

There are the things I buy to lift Jesús’s spirits and help him cope with the grief that is never far from his mind when he’s alone: a bottle of the port wine he loved the first time we drank tiny sips of it together over dessert at a restaurant in Miramar, a turquoise glazed Japanese bowl for burning the amber-scented incense I make sure he always has in abundance, battery-operated votive candles to light the shelf where he keeps photos of all the people he’s lost. And then there are necessities for surviving the challenges of life in Cuba: surge protectors for the refrigerator and deep freeze, window glazing to repair panes of glass on the verge of falling out of their frames, a portable power station and solar panel for extended blackouts.

Early each morning, as I sit in bed waiting for Jesús to wake up and message me, I stare at my list, strategizing. I can only check two suitcases when I fly. I have mastered the art of ensuring each one weighs exactly 50 pounds when I pull up to the Southwest counter’s Help Desk, where all travelers to Cuba must check in for their flights. I’m never able to bring everything, so I am forced to prioritize. It would seem that after so many trips the list would gradually shrink, tapering off as I stockpile durable goods in my Cuban home. But there is always something new to add, some unexpected challenge to address, and I always have more items I want to bring than I have space to pack them.

I have settled into an uneasy rhythm of existing between two places. The predictability of the cycle makes it easier to withstand the disruption of constantly uprooting and resettling myself. As I spend days between trips planning what I’m going to buy, how I can allocate my available funds for greatest impact, how I’ll distribute items among my suitcases and carry-ons to maximize the space and weight allowance, I’m not thinking about the possibility of illnesses. Canceled flights. The island-wide electrical grid collapses that have occurred four times now within less than a year. I’m not remembering the last time I logged onto the USCIS website and saw an estimated processing time of 15 months for our immigration case. I’m not pondering the fact that between us, we have already had four birthdays apart since we realized that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.

When I arrive in Cuba, I can unpack and organize almost 150 pounds of baggage in the time it takes Jesús to make me a cup of coffee and carry the aluminum rocking chairs out onto the balcony. There, we will toast each other with our coffee cups as the ocean breeze washes over us and the sun lingers above the western horizon. I can exhale then, slipping my sandals off and resting my bare feet on Jesús’s lap, silently acclimating to the sounds of the street vendors calling out to the neighborhood as they walk past, the gaggle of dogs next door working themselves into a frenzied cacophony of barking before rearranging themselves on the steps and going back to sleep. Later we will plan our evening, choose a restaurant, arrange for a taxi. But first we will sit together without needing to speak, relearning each other’s faces and letting the energy of reconnection silently flow between us.

Sunset in Cojimar. Photo credit: Erin O’Brien (author)

This essay was first published on Erin O’Brien’s Substack, Becoming Part 2. If you enjoyed reading it, she would love to have you as a subscriber!