While growing up, one of the more interesting person, a truly erudite person, that I met was Erwin F. I do not remember meeting him more than two or three times, usually in the architectural offices of a friend of his.
This morning I woke up looking at the scenery around which was brighter than my normal morning coffee sojourn.
I went outside, barefoot on the grass to feel the young sun on my face. I did a few deep breathing exercises.
What all happens in the course of the day ? that poem from Neruda..
Then I remember, smile, you never know what all can happen today?
The words were spoken by Erwin Frenkel. He had such a good command of the English language even though he was born in Europe during the dark gloomy dangerous days of Nazism and had to flee to Australia.
You will never know who you will meet today and what unexpected pleasures come your way..
Jose ( and his wife) with whom I share this townhouse in Miami during this isolation, informed me that the electrician would arrive and be prepared for all the apparatus to be shut down.
as if in compensation, Jose prepared Calaloo (a pan caribbean dish from Baracoa in Cuba down to Trinidad with varying ingredients) which was nothing short of delicious.
Juan the electrician soon arrived, he had the look of a Peruvian bandido, but turned out to be from Cuba.
Initially we put each other in our worlds. He is from Miramar, a nice suburb in Havana. We talked pleasantly about our lives in Cuba. Because the American Embassy has been closed by the republican government, he has not been able to process the paperwork for his wife to join him .. we have been having a lovely conversation about what we both like about our island ..I wish him well for a rapid reunion with his wife ..
I realize that while reducing Cuba (its politics, its economics, its society) to few well trodden cliches, we deny people like Juan his Cuban identity and the future he wants to build in this country for him and his wife.
We exchanged pleasant moments, two of us from such widely different backgrounds (it does not matter at all) but we could share something very beautiful, which included human relationships.
I am an Australian, that is not what defines me. During my university days i decided to free myself of all connections, starting with the easiest and to the most difficult in the end .
One moment I can give my friends and lovers, a whiff of Australia, at another my passion as a doctor to the indigenous people, or my devotion to my devotion... Of all the things, believe it or not , the easiest thing to free myself was the clutches of family and then choose my own..
It is noon and the skies are grey as they are during the waning days of the Hurricane Season..
As Erwin Frenkel would have said: what else is in store? Messages of love and affection, as it is normal, has been arriving from various parts of the world.. to all of you, thank you..
