In the early years of my wanderings through Cuba, I often found myself simply drifting through the streets, letting my spirit guide decide where I might end up. The vibe carried its familiar mixture of wonder as each corner turned was another surprise; the rhythm of life unfolded with an expectation of the unexpected. It was during one such wandering that I came upon a group of boys in the midst of a game that seemed to belong to every childhood everywhere, some version of war, or perhaps cops and robbers. The exact rules were invisible, but the urgency was clear. I recognized it instantly; I had played such games myself once, in another time.

They noticed me almost at once.

In the humid, twilight of Cuba, a country that has become a masterpiece of slow-motion disappearance. One realizes that to be Cuban is to live within a beautiful, heartbreaking paradox. Sitting on a crumbling seawall along the Malecón, watching the spray of the ocean that leap like a ghost over the sea wall, and you will hear the familiar sigh of the Cubans: “No es fácil.”

It was a modest house, tucked away in a quiet barrio—my Abuela’s sister’s home, where our voices had carried softly across tiled floors and the afternoon heat pressed with intensity against the shutters. We had just said our goodbyes when I slid into the front seat of the car. The streets pulsed with their own unruly rhythm. The buildings, though faded and crumbling at the edges, seemed to exhale memory with every crack in their facades. But it was the people who gave Havana its heartbeat. They didn’t just inhabit the streets; they charged through them, each one carving a path with quiet purpose, stories in their eyes—but something inside me had shifted.

We are tales wrapped in tobacco leaves,

 Whispers swaying in mango trees.

 The hush from Havana still tells the tale—

 Of love, of loss, of dreams that never sail.

The day arrived and I flew to Nassau. I moved through the airport, found the Cubana Airlines desk, bought my ticket, and with a slip of paper that served as my visa, I waited. I was already feeling like I was going back in time. Boarding the Tupolev, an old Russian aircraft, was an adventure in itself as it was stairs waiting to climb to board. Walking across the tarmac, I saw the wheels—bald, the metal tread exposed. The engines roared to life, and soon white smoke drifted from the floor. I learned it was just the air conditioning. On future flights, I learned which passengers were first timers as a look of panic appeared on their faces as that smoke appeared.

Reading Mr. Iyer’s words was more than reading a book. It was a journey. A journey to Cuba. A journey to myself. My parents were Cuban. My grandparents too. But I was raised American. My name is LeRoy. The only Spanish I heard growing up was when my parents whispered secrets they didn’t want us to understand, or when we visited my grandparents. A little stuck with me. Enough.

It was a Tuesday when I picked my mother up from the airport. She lived in Atlanta, but now, suddenly, she was in Miami.

When I read Pico Iyer’s Cuba and The Night in the spring of ’96, I didn’t know it would turn my world inside out. But books do that sometimes. They pull you in, twist you around, and leave you standing somewhere else entirely.