An ode to Havana: A reflection of a Cuba worlds apart by a privileged outsider...

The contrast between life as we know it and an entirely different world lies in only a 90 mile stretch of clear blue waters.

Havana, you are a beautiful and surreal swirl of cultural vibrance, optimism and content being that is absolutely sun-soaked in poverty, desperation and hunger.

I've seen you as an entire city that smiles sincerely with a hungry mouth, focused on kindness and passion, but distracted by survival.

You hold dear to you the ideals of your revolutionary fathers in such a profound way, as if to say we got here not by means of just conflict, but by the divine hands of our ordinary countrymen.

You are torn between your defiance of capitalism, pride of revolution and the very real fact that communism has failed you. Yet optimism is all that shows in your demeanor.

You're decaying, colorful, beautifully architected buildings that literally crumble into your narrow broken streets is a symbol of the contradiction and uncertainty in which Havana's being itself resides.

You are astonishing and have changed my life.

Speaking with you and living amongst you, sharing scares meals and riding through your twisting streets for even only a few moments has carved out a tiny corner in my heart.

A corner that leaves me hungry to survive, hungry to learn, desperate to act on curiosity and most importantly to live deliberately, in between the pillars of hardship, where passionate ideals and uncertainty resides.

In that part of me, I will forever hold a piece of Havana. And until we meet again, farewell.

- Jose Marti Airport, Havana, Cuba. (July 2016)