With me was an awesome Cubanita from Miami who is planning to move to Nashville with her husband and 3-year-old son. We connected through her best friend, also a Miami native and Nashville resident. She thought the Cubanita that I am could convince her Cubanita best friend that she too could live here.

When we parted yesterday afternoon, she said: “I am seeing it with new eyes.”

She now believes she can live here…so far from the Motherland and Hialeah. (I think it helped that another friend of mine, a woman I call the Center of the Cuban Universe in Nashville, joined us for lunch.)

I swear, I think I could be a tour guide in this town. I love telling people about Nashville, pointing out the cool, the unusual. I think I could be some kind of Chamber spokesperson because I love it here. I love the history, the idiosyncrasies, the music. Oh goodness, the music.

And the heart. (Do you know we were voted the Friendliest City in America this year? Again.)

This morning, I happened upon a Nashville-based group, Help-Portrait, that is encouraging photographers across the country to take portraits of people in need, print and give it to the person. I watched a video of one shoot and cried.

Not an hour later, the local NPR station ran a story about a Nashville-based online store, Mekong Blue, that helps women in Cambodia sell silk scarves around the world. Those scarves helps feed families, and as the story goes, keep women from joining the sex trade out of desperation.

It got me thinking about how many good, charitable ideas come out of this city. How many people I know who volunteer their time, give their money, loan their talents to help make this a better place. Their work spreads across the country and the world. They change lives.

These two others quickly come to mind:

The Rev. Becca Stevens, a supremely interesting Episcopal priest, founded Thistle Farms, a non-profit operated by the women of Magdalene House, a residential community for women with a history of drug addiction and prostitution. Stevens founded and runs Magdalene House as well. The Thistle Farms body lotions, candles and bath products are sold on-line and across the country and they not only help fund the non-profit, but teach the women business skills.

Sam Davidson, a young Nashvillian, co-founded Cool People Care, connecting volunteers with need and encouraging people to make a difference daily, even if it is just cutting a shower short by a minute each day. His site and book are full of ideas.

I am sure there are others…

If you are looking for gifts that make a difference, consider Thistle Farms and Mekong Blue…

And, if you ever need a tour of Nashville, let me know.

Here is the Help-Portrait video about the Nashville test shoot that made me cry:

Troy apparently got his butt wiped often.

This weekend, my mom visited Nashville and we celebrated Maria’s 6th birthday. (More on that in another post).

We also caught up with a childhood friend of mine who grew up next door to my grandparent’s house in Miami. Because the world is small and full of coincidences, he and his family have lived in Nashville for as long as I have, and this is the first time we’ve seen each other since we were in our mid-teens. It was beyond awesome to reconnect.

He is a year older than I am, totally Americano, and probably my first non-family playmate. He and I spent many hot days playing outside, hanging out on the porch, and going around the corner to snag mamoncillos from the neighbor’s gigantic and glorious tree. I brought to our meeting, a picture of us as 2- and 3-year-olds on scooters and bikes with training-wheels. Today, we are 42 and 43.

His wife, who made the connection with me through Facebook, also lived next door to my grandparent’s too, on the other side of the house. She moved in when we were teens. They met, fell in love, have two kids and have been married 23 years. Sweet, huh?

Anyway. my friend told my mom he remembers looking out the back of his house and seeing my grandparents wipe the dogs’ butts after they pooped.

My mom laughed and said she never knew that.
I retold the story to a friend this week.

“These were outside dogs. I have no idea why my grandparents would wipe the dogs’ asses,” I said, laughing.
“Oh, Sweetie, that is hysterical and that says oh so much about you!” my friend said, cracking up.
“Oh Lord, it does, doesn’t it? … Shit.”

Crazy-ass Cubans.

From Time magazine, a story on the growing number of Cuban-Americans who want to lift the embargo and travel ban.

A couple of quotes:

The survey by Miami-based Bendixen & Associates, the largest Hispanic polling firm, also found that 48% of older and more conservative Cuban exiles known as historicos support lifting the prohibition, up from 32% in 2002. “I think that all exchange is good,” says one, 68-year-old Miamian Lala Suarez, who before coming to the U.S. was imprisoned in Cuba by Fidel Castro’s government after the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion by militant exiles.

and…

If the travel ban were lifted altogether, recent studies suggest some 3 million Americans would visit Cuba each year. It’s uncertain whether they would be effective ambassadors. But after almost a half-century of failed policy, most Cuban Americans have decided that letting Americans travel to Cuba would be more effective than keeping them away.

The video above is from last year, during the presidential election. I had not seen it, so if you haven’t either, there you go. A growing divide between the young ones and the historicos.

Me? I think Cuba must be seen to be believed.

I made myself watch Cane again.

Que paquete.

I’m not even going to get into the fact the main character (Jimmy Smits) is a murderer, or that the balsero sounds like he has marbles in his mouth, or that ew, the main Cubanita marries her adopted brother. I just want to let the Cane writers know that this ain’t no Cuban family drama.

You want Cuban family drama? (Forgive me while I stereotype my people…) How’s this:

The under-age niña going off to the nightclub without a chaperona? Por favor. And then she does ecstasy and her uncle finds out, but doesn’t give her a shake right then, drag her over to her madre and send them both home? There would be yelling and arm-waving and threats of boarding school for days. For days!

Hector Elizondo’s patriarch character hands the reins over to his son and lets him make all the multimillion-dollar decisions. Really? While there is still breathe in him? Cuban fathers are made of opinions. Letting go isn’t really in the DNA. And if the character was based on a real Cuban, he also would have given that snotty younger son quite the verbal palisa.

And finally, I have yet to see Rita Moreno say an “Ay, Dios Mio’’or “Bendito” Listen, if it was my mother’s grandchild who was going off to fight in Iraq, she’d be santiguando the boy and lighting candles to all the saints. She also hasn’t nagged, martyred or slapped anyone upside the head. ¿Que pasa with that?

And seriously, where’s all the screaming? And the laughing. We are funny, you know.

So, Cane people, call me…I have alotta material for ju.