Havana Club
I was suddenly surprised to realize that I can know the products of Cuba here in Italy. First up was some unusual named Rum Cubano at my DR's house. He suddenly appeared with this brown, elegant bottle and looking at the label realized it was cuban rum. I had a Cuban cigar a few years ago but am not really a cigar man. And probably I carried it around and smelled it and touched it for a few months out of the humidor before I ever fired it up. But this Cuban rum was like a carmelized kiss and yet a little saucy with a warm jolt. I was cautious but willing to flavor across my palette some of the essence of Cuba. Now a few days later I sit doing my computer work on a hot hot day and sipping Cuban rum in a large wine glass. As always a lot of new things keep coming to pass. Presently the information may be about the house and it being sold; of course we would have to find another place. The emotion of letting this place goes go turns out to be very strong for Silvia and I. I am also getting a strong look into Sicilian behavior, which is never casual about such things. It is complex and dangerous and filled with love and is circular and appears to arise as spontaneous natural behavior yet is it particular…..and possibly outside of English to explain.
So Silvia carries the meetings and I sit with the volcano and sip Havana Club while I think and wonder where my Dr friend got his rum cubano. It is hot. It is impossible to say where the sea begins and the sky ends….yes. I smoke and drink. Some days I smoke 2 packs of camels. Drinking in Italy, on Pantelleria is a transformational, social act. In a Sicilian culture there are Sicilian subtleties which Silvia sees as if they have a blinking light and which go straight over my head. I drink some very exceptional Sicilian wines. One of my favorites is a very dry zeibebo. Its color is like a shimmering pearl. This and Passito. Passito is a force all its own. The Passito grapes, the Zeibebo grapes, are coming in now and are being taken up and laid in the sun. People show up from around the world, in small numbers, to help their friends bring in these grapes.
When we think of closing the fire here and moving to another house, I realized in the emotional force of that idea; the fire here has moved slowly, lightly. It has accomplished some work for the people and some work for the island. Maybe we are doing acupuncture on her with these movings around. It is not certain I guess that we will move on. If we do not it means we will fight the landlord, or we will come up with $200,000 in cash in the next few weeks. I am sure something will continue to happen. The tiny fire made ceremonies in four seasons. It made ceremonies with the rising of the sun and the rising of the moon; their setting moments as well. And equinox and solstice. I rember with some vividness the ceremony of the spring equinox last year when i was very sick. The ceremonies made tobacco ties and songs, and knew the breath of the sacred pipe. Language is an issue in talking about these things...it is easy to start poetry, to start singing, to say it is a good day to be deleted.
This dialogue is just an idea and a thought. No one was named guilty of anything. If something stinks it is ok to comment on the odor. We keep a small american indian fire here on the island. All the way over here on the back of a turtle. We are trying to move this sacred fire ceremony around the earth.
