When Dreams are Calling (9 page)

15
A Few Genuine Advantages of Living Alone

After
a Chinese roommate

And
a lesbian kind of date,

After
cockroaches roaming free,

Never
in hoards of less than three,

Moving
in a clean, nice place,

By
myself in all that space,

Felt
a little bit surreal,

No
more trial by ordeal!

“Finally! My own
place! I am free to do whatever I want, with whoever I want,
whenever I want,
Robert!”

“Finally no more roommates, naked or half
naked, alluring or
disgusting, lesbian, straight, or whatever is out there,” Robert said,
excited
for me.

“Won’t my life be boring now?”

“You mean finally a bit of normality! I was
getting worn out by all
these ups and downs of yours.”

“I was just getting fit! I promise no more of
these ups and downs
from now on! However, I cannot promise other ups and downs won’t take
their
place,” I said, blowing him a kiss.

“About time.”

“True,” I responded, thinking that for more
than four years now, I
did not have a real boyfriend.

“Well done, sweetie. You came a long way. One
dream accomplished.
And, ’cause I know how much you love gardening and hate cut flowers,
here you
go,” he handed me a pot full of herbs wrapped around in red, yellow,
and blue
paper, the colors of the Romanian flag.

“Is that all?” I pretended to be disappointed.

“And a card. As for pinching your sexy
postérieur
,
this
comes later. Open the card and read it out loud! That’s an order!”

“A unicorn on the cover?! Hmm… ‘
May
all your dreams come true... especially
the weird ones. From one dreamer to another.
Te
pup. Robert
.’”

Te pup
was the first Romanian word I
taught him, and it means kiss you.

“Then do it. Make the words count,” I said,
giving him the cheek.

“You’re the best,” he said gently.

“I know. The best around here. Out there, in
the big world, that’s a
different story,” I joked. “Let’s cook something. I am starving!”

“Not sure about that. Last time you cooked, I
ate and flossed at the
same time.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean; your hair can’t seem to
resist the temptation
of gettin’ in your tasty dishes.”

I blushed. He continued:

“No need to be embarrassed. You taste good!
Now, I could use some
cool refreshing pop before you make a total shambles of your kitchen.”

We laughed.

When the time came for some serious
renovations, sitting comfortably
on my queen-sized bed, I recalled the times when I was sleeping on an
inflatable single mattress in that awful bachelor apartment which back
then I
called home. So much had changed since that day and I made it all
happen.
Sometimes I had tears in my eyes, other times a smile on my face, but
passion,
determination, and faith were always with me.  Red must have
been my color. And
so, I let my imagination go wild and bought my first couch. Red. Taken
by
itself, the event shouldn’t have meant much. After all, everyone has a
couch,
be it red, black, or white. For me, though, after immigrating with two
suitcases and without much money, that red couch was more than just a
couch. It
was a symbol. To create the perfect set up for a sinful night, even if
all
alone, I painted the wall behind it in strong bright yellow.

After my whole apartment was colorful enough to
compete with a
flashy Lorikeet and still win, I stopped. I took a long bath
accompanied by a
glass of Sangria and let Carl Orff's masterpiece,
Carmina
Burana
, play
its magic.

After such a long struggle, one by one, my
wishes were starting to
come true. I had the world by the tail and no one could have convinced
me
otherwise.

Dora’s
Journal Notes

• If you cannot find
  contentment in solitude,
  you will never find it in the crowd.
  

16
Cuba: La Dolce Vita

Travel
far and travel wide,

Leave
your worries far behind,

Royal
Palms, a strong Mojito,

A
cigar or a burrito,

Hemingway
and Bienvenido.

Cuba
!
My first holiday in years!

“You’ll
love it here!” the lady next
to me assured me on our way to
the hotel. “I come here every year! You know, it’s the people!”

“
It’s
the people
... I wonder
what that means. Are nations
indeed so different from each other? Or is each person different from
the other?”

“Both.”

Looking
out the window, I couldn’t see much:
just royal palm trees,
the Cuban national symbol and the sea…

“
Bienvenida
a Cuba!”
the
lady at the reception said, handing
me the key to my room with one hand and with the other a freshly
prepared
Mojito.

“Thank
you,” I responded, listening to the
beautiful piano music played
by a dark skinned guy.

The warm
Caribbean breeze and the humidity in
the air were making me
feel dizzy, a pleasurable dizziness. One after another I could just feel my worries
melting away.

The room
was simple, the furniture old, the TV
small, but there was
something cozy about the whole place.

I turned
the TV on: “
Guantanamera,…
”

“
Guantanamera…,
”
I started
singing along, dancing in the
mirror. “Oh, that feels good! I love Cuba!”

And from
that day till the last day, my
feelings have not changed.

Next
morning, I decided to see Havana and
looked for a touring
companion. After meeting a curious Canadian guy about fifty years of
age who
had to ask his father’s permission to get out of the resort without
much
success, I thought it was all in vain. But then I made a Cuban friend:
she
was the
only person at the car rental office. Without thinking twice, she
simply said
to me:

“You want
to go to Havana and have no one to go
with? No problem. I
close the office and we go.”

“Right…”
For a second my mind could not process
the information:
job, responsibility, the one and only person in the rental office.
Hello,
are you taking me for a fool?
She couldn’t just leave the
office. She must
have been joking. But she was not.

And, there
we were, two women in an old
American car, heading
towards La Habana.

“
Guantanamera…
guajira, Guantanamera
.
Sing with me!” she
shouted while trying desperately to dance, talk, and wave to the other
drivers
all at the same time.

“
Guantanamera,
guajira, Guantanamera
,”
I hummed along,
knowing the song by now.

“You,
Canadians, don’t sing much, don’t dance
much, and don’t make
love much.
Here, we live to love, smoke
cigars, dance salsa and drink Mojitos.”

“We don’t
have much time. It’s life,
always standing in our way.”

“I know, you
trade time for a bigger TV, a
fancy car, and an expensive restaurant.”

“It’s a bit
more complicated than that.”

“It’s as
complicated as you make it, amiga.
But anyway, it’s a far too beautiful day to talk about those things. By
the end
of your holiday, you’ll understand what I mean.”

“Tell me
about Cuba. It seems such a
peaceful place, but also a bit sad, is it?”

“Sad? No one
is sad here. Maybe just the
ones thinking the grass is always greener on the other side. But, those
ones
will always be sad wherever they go. Happiness comes from here,” she
said,
pointing to her heart.

I looked at
her a bit envious, a bit
curious, and anxious to hear her story.

“In Cuba,
the houses might not look like
much, but they are ours! Furniture, like everything else, is hard to
find. But when
we do find it, oh, isn’t that a happy moment! Even my bed must be a
hundred
years old. But it’s a sturdy one, wood made. It has seen a lot!” She
smiled.

When she
said that, I suddenly remembered
a seminar about mattresses I went to. The guy was trying to convince us
they
need to be changed every few years because of the dust mites
multiplying in our
beds each day. Then, a friend of mine jumped in: “Hey, at least someone
is
having sex in my bed.” We all laughed at the reality of his words.

As she could
read my mind, my Cuban lady
continued:

“I love fast
and furious love making! In
the morning, it’s the best wake-up call!
You see,
in Cuba, people are in love with love, with life, with one another! I
love my
husband and he loves me, so why not, I say? Use it or you lose it,
isn’t it how
it goes? So, what about you? How many times in one night?”

“Me
? Hmm…I’m
single.”

“Single?
So young and beautiful and single?
What do you do all day?”

“Not much.
Just work.”

“Work?
This is what you all do there. Slaves
hiding behind
illusions. Isn’t
that
sad?”

“Perhaps…What
village is this?” I asked,
showing her some terribly
run-down buildings, with broken windows, from which people were coming
in and
out.

“Village?
That’s Havana, love! The old Havana!
C'mon, we’ll go
visit a cigar factory and if you’d like, we can take a ride in a yellow
Coco
Taxi. It will be fun!”

We spent
the whole day walking around Old
Havana.
With its old streets and buildings, its American cars from the ‘40s and
‘50s
and its pharmacies, which still sold potions in jars instead of
manufactured
pills, Havana was a place of the past. But its crumbling Colonial
buildings still
charmed me, just in a different way than the modern towers of New York
would;
they reminded me that it is just a question of time before everything
eventually becomes dust.

At night,
she dragged me into a small local
restaurant.
It was hot and crowded.

Here,
wrapped
in
the
shroud
of
the
mystery
given by their
latest cigar, Cuban men must fall asleep listening to the sound of
rumba, Celia
Cruz and dreaming of curvaceous women in colorful Spanish dresses. What
a life,”
I said.

“Then,
in the morning, they come home. And you know
what’s happening in the morning…” she responded hinting at our
earlier discussion. “Let’s drink! For you, for
love…”

“And love making!” I added.

“May be no day without.”

“And for Cuban people, for their open heart,
humor, kindness, and
wisdom! For their spirit!”

“For you my friend and for a life that matters!”

We drank Mojito after Mojito. And I was happy.

That day was a life lesson. It showed me life
should and can be
enjoyed even by those who drive old crappy cars, live in tiny rundown
houses
with no windows left intact, have a survival job if any, and, on
special
occasions, dine out at some decrepit family restaurant on the side of
the road.

Cubans were not whiners, but fighters. They
loved life, looked for
what was positive in it, and forgot their sorrow in the arms of a
lover, a
smoke of a good cigar, a glass of Mojito, or the rhythm of rumba. For
them,
dancing was more natural than walking, smoking cigars better than
talking, and
smiling came always before asking.
In my
eyes, Cuban people were living the essence of what the rest of us
merely
preach.

They knew how to live and my friend was no
different.

Her prayer became my prayer:

God, I ask you to give me wisdom to understand
my man, enough love
to forgive him, patience with his anger and frustrations, because God,
if you
give me strength, I will kill him
.

Dora’s
Journal Notes
 

• When you have all
  that makes you happy
  around you, look no further.
  
• You might chase
  the American dream in America, but you might find it somewhere else.
  
• The best job is
  the one that feeds you
  and still lets you enjoy life.
  
• The size of a
  place is less important
  than the company that comes with it.