Tied to the Sea

By Irina Pino

HAVANA TIMES – Three nights ago, I was on Whatsapp and saw that a writer friend of mine was online. I admire him for his stories, his articles, and for the way he connects them to films and literature. Reading him means enjoying a very unique narrative. Not only because he draws you right into his universe, but also because he inspires you to seek out the movie or book he’s referring to.

This colleague confessed to me (with no faltering) that he wasn’t at his normal work: he was looking at pornography. I didn’t feel at all shocked when he told me that – I’ve never been a prude. I cut him off, and we began talking about his stay in Greece, when he visited a restaurant on the coast and collected stones of different colors and shapes there. One of them, a black stone with white patches, is what most evokes his journey to him.

He won’t let go of that rock. He invariably carries it in his pants’ pocket, as if it were a good luck charm.

I collect stones too if I’m wandering along the coast after my walks. I keep them in a little plastic bag. Later, I put them in bowls on top of the bookshelf in the living room, or in my room. It feels good to put them in my hand and touch them. The sensation of that contact transports me to other landscapes, or to the people I’ve loved.

In the same way, snails and seashells add to my collection.

When I was little, I often went to the ocean, especially to the beaches on the east side of Havana, where my Dad would be allotted time at a beach house as a reward for being an outstanding worker.

My parents and the ocean, days in paradise, distant echoes of a better country, far away from the disaster we’re currently living through.

The ocean hypnotizes me, even as its immensity makes me fear it, or rather, respect it. I once fell asleep on a raft that floated far from the edge, and I felt tremendous fear. Another time, at the Santa Maria beach when I was seven years old, my uncle pulled me out by the hair because I was drowning.

I never learned to swim – not for a lack of teachers, but due to my stupid phobia.

The sea has been a daily presence for me for over two decades. Watching it is a natural tranquilizer. I prefer it without storms or strong winds. However, its existence is never static; everything moves in constant transformation.

Speaking of the sea, I heard some news that left me very sad. I don’t know if anyone recalls one of my diary posts, “Strange characters on the beach,” where I talk about the people who come to this area to do unusual things. It seems that the young man I’d come across time after time, who used to talk with me, disappeared under the waters.

The boy adored his grandmother, and when she died, he brought an image of Santa Barbara to the seashore. She wanted him to let it sink beneath the waves there. But he didn’t have the courage to do that. Conserving it meant honoring her memory.

He often asked me for advice, because he wanted to work. I don’t know if he was ever able to do so in reality. His ramblings sometimes interrupted the conversation. But his reflections and thoughts, expressed out loud, revealed great sensitivity; he couldn’t stand the fishermen, calling them: “killers of fish.” Some neighbors called him crazy and made fun of him right to his face.

And I wonder: “Who is normal, especially these days, when there are so many things lacking? Beginning with the lack of humanity, of compassion towards others.

Caetano Veloso, the Brazilian singer, once said: “Seen close-up, no one is normal.”

I agree completely with Veloso – we have phobias, obsessions, thousands of problems. The true battle lies in squelching them and not letting them overcome us. Only this man couldn’t, he was trapped in his world and couldn’t escape.

Maybe he feared living but not the sea, since he would go out to swim where the waters are deepest.

The last day they saw him, he had a bag of clothes. They tell me he washed the clothes and laid them out to dry in the sun. While they were drying, he went in for a swim. He never returned.

His belongings rest in the mouth of one of the tunnels on the beach. No one has touched them.

Read more from the diary of Irina Pino here.