Dropping Balls

Joost, the crazy Dutch guy, and I were hanging out on Playa Santa Maria, the closest beach to Havana. It was a wonderfully relaxing day, we finally got outside our comfort zone of Havana Centro and explored a little more of what Cuba had to offer. Joost has become famous around the casa for trying to teach everyone and anyone to juggle.

Last time we were in Cuba Alicia was complaining about how all of her oranges wound up crushed and Yanet said she didn’t want to smell like onions anymore. But this time Joost brought his own balls with him.

So while we were lying on the beach Joost asked me if I’d like to learn. Learning to juggle has been on my list of things to do for quite some time now, sure it’s something like number 35 at the moment, but what the heck I had an eager teacher, time to kill on the beach and a set of juggling balls nearby.

I’ve noticed myself kinda of getting antsy in the last couple two months or so. I haven’t done an honest days work since December and truth be told for several weeks (ok months) before that I had basically stopped being reasonably productive.

But I do think I’ve channeled some of that into a desire to do some other stuff that I’ve never found time for before. My Spanish has gotten pretty damn decent if I do say so myself, I learned to swim which was a big deal for me, I climbed a couple of mountains and done some trekking, met some fascinatingly wonderful people, sure my salsa skills are still barely existent but that’s next. And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and pondering and imagining what could be and what shouldn’t be.

As we hung out on the beach Joost took about 10 minutes to explain the basic concept. I struggled dropping the balls for a while and a couple people looked on. A Cuban guy walked up, asked for the balls and took off without a hitch. A Mexican guy picked out three oddly shaped rocks out of the sand and started throwing them up with frustrating ease.

The more I watched everyone succeed at something that I just couldn’t seem to grasp the more obsessed with the idea of juggling I became. I spent another hour or two that night throwing balls on the floor and picking them up. At some point Joost just looked at me and said “dude, you’re just trying too hard.” I don’t think he used the word “dude” because that doesn’t sound very Dutch, but the point was the same.

And that made sense. And I’ve noticed that sometimes when I really want something the OCD part of my personality kicks in. I just can’t let some things go, I obsess over them, even when there’s something else I’m focusing the majority of my attention on my mind is working on the background handling this latest preoccupation.

And it’s true. Sometimes when you try too hard you just set yourself up for failure. You forget about the patience you need to let something just click. You try to fast forward through the rough, awkward phase where everything is a little strange and not quite comfortable because you already know the end result you’re shooting for. The second time to Cuba has been like that for me.

There’s some middle ground, I’m sure, between persistence and obsession. I doubt you can achieve and thing that’s difficult and worthwhile unless you’re willing to invest the time and effort required to pursue it. But if you obsess about it, if you don’t let yourself relax and take some space, if you refuse to wait for whatever will happen to happen it seems you’ve also got a pretty good chance of failing.

At this point I can kinda sorta juggle. Well enough to fake it at least. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it or not, it seems like a reasonable way to kill time but I don’t think it really impresses chicks and thus it’s coolness factor drops. And I didn’t really come to Cuba to learn to juggle, I’m still working on number one on my list.