The sun set yesterday with glistening plantains and empanada remnants upon my lips, a glass of Spanish wine in my hand, a gentle breeze at my back, and my mom and two aunties dancing to Cuban jazz. The Hollywood Bowl came alive to the groovy notes of Ninety Miles and Arturo Sandoval.
It was a night to remember. One in which Andy Garcia played bongo drums as my Aunt Pat's toes wiggled atop our box seats. My mom passed dulce de leche cookies as my Auntie Barbara squeezed our hands and whooped and hollered. In the box to our left, a grandma blinked with neon accessories (necklace, ring, keychain, and even her ice-cubes and wine glass...all alit and flashing madly).
Soon, night embraced our musical realm. The red wine drips on my shirt faded into blackness, the neon jewelry blinked brighter, my mom's hands kneaded the knots in my shoulders (the small cost of 8 days of walking in Boston with Nora in a back pack)...I ate more cookies, drank more wine.
Then the lights rose again upon the stage. Blues and reds bathed the members of Buena Vista Social Club. A woman with liquid hips and generous cleavage swayed behind her microphone. A man with an electric smile, a shiny suit, and a "gracia, mucha gracia" began to sing through his smile. The drums, the bongos, the piano, the bass, the trumpets...all whipping us into a joyful frenzy. You can't NOT dance to Cuban music...it would mean you're somehow broken inside. It is quite simply auditory utopia.
And finally, after several songs, SHE arrived. Omara Portuondo.
One of the few "original" members that you would surely remember if you have seen the documentary.
Her flowing white dress swished to the floor, barely concealing her silver Birkenstocks. Her hair pinned back and wrapped in an enormous gold bow. Her fingers and knuckles curled and bent in aged angles. Her back gently curved. And her voice...her voice finds you. Enters your body. Reverberates there and nestles into your bones. Exits through your smile. She claps and expects you to clap for her. She points at you. She speaks her few English words with a heavy-laced caramel tongue. She wants you to stand and dance and smile. You don't deny her. You can't deny her.
At the end of the show, she blows air kisses to us all, she says "Bye, bye, bye, bye" and waves her gnarled knuckles to us. I do not know if I'll ever see her and experience her voice again. We hopped aboard our party shuttle bus, passing the crushed box of cookies once more, drinking the final splashes of white wine, accepting dark chocolate mints from tipsy strangers...all of us dipped in the honey of Havana's pulse...closing our eyes and squeezing hands and savoring our own memories of music, dance, and family.
I slipped the key in our front door close to 1am. Daniel and Nora slept soundly. Wine had settled into my mind making cobwebs and waves. A guaranteed brutal morning. But my toes wiggled as I fell asleep. My mind danced and memories pooled.
"Cheers" to my Aunt Barbara for a musical birthday celebration befitting her dancing spirit. I will never know sisterhood - but I always bask gratefully in the light of this trio.
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