The view out my "window" - UPDATED

I work on South Beach in Miami, a beautiful place, but in an interior office. I don't have any windows in my office but now I have a view. A couple of days ago a co-worker gave me some color printouts of five photographs he took right before he left Cuba for good in 1992. Together the five photographs make up a panoramic view of the Havana skyline as seen from the Morro castle. I have carefully aligned the images to overlap at exactly the right spots and trimmed the ragged edges of the collage. The result is an image about three feet long and six inches tall.

These are not your typical colorful photographs of Cuba. The day the pictures were taken was overcast, and Havana harbor is dark and smooth como un plato (like a plate). On this gray day I see smokestacks belching black smoke into the sky and can recognize important landmarks like El Capitolio, the Focsa building and USINT.


Although the images aren't beautiful there is a palpable feeling that I get as I look at the city. The sky is ominous, but the darkness is temporary. The sun will rise in Havana again and that moment is coming soon. And when it does, I'll be standing at the Morro castle taking pictures of the glorious sight. Then the view from my "window" will truly be a thing of beauty.