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- Chapter 10 -

Journal Writing

     I’ll be 60 this fall. Julie, 20 years younger, came into my life only a few years ago—a film script supervisor from the UK. Looking for a career change, she’d flown over to the USA to enroll in a few workshops to try on a new career. Two years later, she'd successfully transitioned into a new career—as a full-time mother. I’m the part-time dad.

     Since my twenties, I've been searching for a mate with whom to build a family, but my lifestyle and my zany personality have made this difficult. Success has eluded me. There have been a few long-term relationships, including those with Franny, Jo, Gretchen, Kate, and Marilyn. However, I can't really call those eleven years with Marilyn, the "absent lover," a relationship. Then, in 1996, Julie walked in.

     efore Renaissance arrived (whom we now call Ren, for Renaissance is too long a name for such a small person), Julie and I would talk about this person who was coming into our lives, as if it were already there. I say, ‘it’ because neither of us knew whether ‘it’ would be a he or a she. I have the events of the birth on that wondrous night written down in another journal and captured on contact sheets somewhere there in my studio. 

     The morning of the anticipated delivery, Julie was insistent on doing it her way. She was not listening to the midwives, who supported her throughout the night. It must have been frustrating for the professionals, who deliver babies every day, to be confronted by such a stubborn woman as Julie. A first-timer, Julie was insistent on doing this her way. Well, after 6 hours of labor, her way wasn’t working. The midwives turned to me, as if I could do something.

     Then, I remembered an incident the previous summer that might help. During my Creative Process workshops I lead every summer, I've taken my class to a cliff on nearby Mount Megunticook so they could experience the thrill (and fear) of facing and climbing a rock cliff. Julie, four months pregnant, came along. This exercise in fear, in confronting a physical challenge, is always an eye opener for creative people. It shows, in a few hours, how to overcome fear and move forward with the climb, a creative project, and with life. Halfway up the cliff, fastened into a safety line and harness, Julie becomes stuck. They all do. She couldn’t find a way to move further up. 

     Coaching from below, I gently provided encouragement and advice. There comes a time in any difficult endeavor—writing a book, helping a dream come true, climbing a cliff, and, in this case, giving birth—that giving up and finding another way is the only way to go forward. Stubborn people struggle with this, but Julie agreed, and with more coaching, she retreated and found another way up. She made it to the top.

     I reminded her of the decision she made that day on the cliff. Perhaps now was the right moment to abandon her way and allow the midwives to help deliver her baby. The midwives gave her a shot of something, and our daughter popped out in the next 20 minutes.

It’s too early for bed.

I sit at the small desk in my room at the Nationale and open my journal.

     There’s only one first time for anything. I need to record as much as I can of this first time in Cuba. For the past 17 years, journal writing has been a part of my life. Each year I fill up one or two of these black-covered, hardbound “artists’ sketchbooks.” Much of what I write and read later is of little consequence, mostly me pissing off at the life I’ve gotten myself into. But for the few pages that do say something, the process is worth the time and effort. Besides, it's a chance to sit and tell my therapist what’s going on. A chance to vet.

So, I begin.

The 1950s not only influenced the cars but also shaped the culture of Cuba. They are still using the technology we used 50 years ago. The phone in the room has a rotary dial. What’s missing is basic enterprise. The new hotels are Canadian or Dutch owned. Many of the other hotels, along with many businesses, are owned by the Cuban Army, and they don’t welcome competition.                While there is an entrepreneurial spirit in Cuba, it is largely hidden on the streets. The government keeps it under control, fearing perhaps it might give rise to an overthrow. 

     Cuba has a tragic history, and now it has a bleak future. This once tropical paradise, with passionate people who created their own music, literature, art, and rum, is now asleep. The grandeur that once defined the Paris or Madrid of the New World has faded, become unkempt, and is slowly deteriorating.

     Yet I could live and work here every winter. It’s even better than the smaller Caribbean islands where I've sent 20 seasons. Here there are artists, writers, filmmakers, and creative people with whom to converse. Havana would be a great place where an international cadre of creative people gather each winter. We’d all join Hemingway’s ghost at Le Floridita to argue, debate, and discuss the process of creating art, literature, and new technologies. 

     Here, too, I wouldn’t have to worry about frozen water pipes, shoveling snow, or a car that won’t start in the sub-zero cold. This is an ideal location. Let me see if I can get this plane off the ground.

     Thus far, Cuba has lived up to Harvey's expectations. A society trapped in the 50s. The same cars I drove when I got my driver's license in 1956 are here, and they are going strong, if rattling a bit. They are held together with Russian parts and Cuban ingenuity. The buildings are out of another era; some look like they came from Cadiz, Spain—and they did, for that’s the port from which Columbus and other Spanish developers sailed on their voyages to the New World. The high-rise condos and casino hotels in the Vedado district are art deco, put up in the 20s. The city plan is European, with wide boulevards, parks, and the Malecón.

     Finally, I find I’m writing about my personal life, much of which deals with the past 25 years of my business life, building the workshops, now a college. Why is it that? Why have I not written about Julie and Renaissance, the two people that are most important to me now? Why do my journals all seem to be full of crises, heartbreak, problems, and turmoil? Why can’t I write about the nicer events in my life: my relationship with Julie, her pregnancy, our plans for a family, and our delight over the prospect of becoming parents . . . and at our ages?