excerpted from Kaiulani Facciani’s book, Whatever Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Strong. November, 2013 – I had just been diagnosed with 9 leptomeningeal mets/tumors in my brain and given weeks to live. My son surprised me with this tattoo he had designed himself (my name with a breast cancer ribbon for the “a”). I […]
excerpted from Kaiulani Facciani’s book, Whatever Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Strong. The diagnosis of cancer left me reeling and disoriented. I stopped at the store and spaced out… staring… in front of the dairy section. “So what does this mean? How long do I have? Do I buy a pint… or a gallon?” […]
excerpted from Kaiulani Facciani’s book, Whatever Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Strong. Positive energy attracts and begets positive energy and negative energy attracts and begets negative energy. – me We all know this to be true on some level. Quantum physicists talk about co-existing alternate realities. They cite the observer effect, which basically states […]
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of […]
I am getting so much joy from giving the little gifts I brought to Cuba. An adorable old man tried to sell me peanuts. I saw him squinting to read the cover of my book and I asked him if he needed glasses to read.
You know how some people have to have the last word? Well, Cubans have to have the last gift! I was very hungry and we stopped and there was an old woman on the side of the road selling things. I didn’t realize that I didn’t have enough change until I had selected cucurucha, chocolate, […]
As I’ve said in my other posts, Cubans in general are very generous and appreciative. As a rule, I don’t give presents to people who ask for them. Anyone who wants a job in Cuba can have a job (more than we can say in the US, huh?). If they can’t work because of disability, […]
So after a week of riding the buses with the Cubans, staying and eating in their homes, and loving every minute of it, I wanted to go diving on the north coast and the only way I could do it in my time frame and budget was to book an excursion to an all-inclusive resort… […]
I decided on a whim to get off my pre-arranged charter bus at a midway stop because I was heading west and it was turning back east. No problema… I would just catch a taxi from the junction to the center of town. Except that there were no taxis… or buses… or cars…… and it […]
I never feel so alive as when I’m getting off a bus in a new town in another country where few speak English and I have no idea where I’m going to stay, get my next meal, or entertain myself and I rarely feel so satisfied as when I’ve figured it all out within hours. […]
I took the locale bus… it costs 8 cents and took over an hour to go 30 kilometeres because we left the highway several times to go back into the wild and stop at little farms and such. It was so great to observe the Cubans with each other with no tourists around. Old people […]
A woman traveling alone is something a lot of people seem to have a hard time getting their mind around. Even tourists from other countries. But especially Cubans because they are all about being together. Everyone I meet asks me, incredulously, “Viajes sola?”. They assume I must be shopping for a man and even the […]
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