For Arturo y Violeta, Maritza y Esteban, Robert, Cata y Camila, and, of course, for Francisco

Admit it. You have a fantasy about living on an island. Most everyone does. It’s remarkable how consistent this fantasy is from one person to the next, and the central feature, of course, is a beach. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had in the past year in which someone has said, “Oh! I bet you’re at the beach today,” but I can tell you that I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve actually been to the beach in the past year, even though the closest one is only five minutes away. The typical life-on-an-island fantasy also consists of a few other features, including tropical drinks, lots of music, lots of sun, and the idea that everyone and everything is relaxed and laid back all the time. I’ll leave it up to you to imagine which of these are true and which are not.

What everyone always overlooks, though, is one feature of island-life that is particularly special, and that is its calor humano: human warmth, social contact.

We returned to Puerto Rico less than a week ago and we’ve already seen almost all of our friends at least once. We hadn’t been back for more than two hours when Maritza called and said, “You’re home! I’m so happy now! I felt sad seeing your apartment windows closed for two months!” I knew she really meant what she said. Robert was the first to visit. A Cuban who has lived in Puerto Rico for several years and who works in a jewelry store, Robert never fails to bring funny stories, especially about tourists and local politics, to share around the dinner table, and this visit was no exception. He also brought white wine and Cuban coffee, and we all caught up on chisme. Our friend Cata, a documentary filmmaker from Colombia, and her daughter, Camila, were next. Cata brought pan de agua, vino tinto, and beer, and Francisco made her a vegetarian fried rice. “I’d pay for him to cook for me every day,” she sighed as we said good night. No sooner had she and Camila left—after extracting a promise that we’d get together this week for coffee in the nearby open-air plaza, then Maritza and Esteban had us over for wine, cheese and crackers, and coconut ice cream-all at once!- and some great conversation. The next night, we had them over for shrimp bisque, grilled salmon, and baked potatoes, and we were talking until 11 PM. And then, just last night, we were returning from our walk with Penelope when we happened upon Arturo and Violeta, our great friends who are the only other couple in our building who sit on their balcony and drink wine. We offer a toast across the patio and always enjoy talking about movies, politics, and poetry. Even though it was after midnight, they invited us up for wine and conversation. Arturo, a caricaturist for one of Puerto Rico’s newspapers and the author of a history of Puerto Rican political humor, had just returned from an international caricature conference in Spain, and he threw open his suitcase to dig around for samples of political cartoons from Cuba. Violeta, a poet, had just returned from Arturo’s pais natal, Chile, where she had enjoyed her own conference, and where she had visited the three houses of Neruda, which dismayed her with what she considered their ostentatiousness.

There’s a lot about living on an island that fails to live up to our fantasies. But the calor humano will always satisfy, the genuine warmth of people who form part of our daily lives and who become, over time, as important and special as family.  

*

Catalina Santamaria, Filmmaker:        http://www.trendelsur.net/

Arturo Yepez, Caricaturist:  http://lambiek.net/artists/y/yepez_arturo.htm

His book, Humor a Quien Humor Merece, is available at: http://www.amazon.com/Humor-quien-humor-merece-Arturo/dp/0847703010