Mario Cartaya was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1951. Eight years later, the turbulent winds of change forced his family to immigrate to the United States in search of a new life lived in freedom.
Fifty-six years later, Mario returned to Cuba in search of the long-forgotten memories of his childhood. Now a successful American architect, this once “unsung child” of the Cuban diaspora went back to face his old demons (who were no longer there) and to recall his earliest experiences. Mario eventually regained the memories of the first 8 years of his life, repaired the tattered tapestry of his existence, and found an inner peace he never knew he needed.
In Journey Back Into The Vault, Mario confronts the contents of the mental lockbox he had built to protect him from his challenging past. In his journey of self-discovery, each chapter reveals relics deliberately buried by his subconscious mind.
Mario’s personal story is also a universal one: how love and enlightenment can only begin with our search for self-actualization and peace of mind. More than a memoir of a Cuban refugee, it’s a story that uncovers the psychological forces that help define us, the power of enduring hope, and how—by achieving purity of heart, reconciliation, and a soul at rest—we can evolve into better versions of ourselves.
Excerpt
“The one constant through all the years has been baseball ... baseball has marked the time ... it reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.”
—Field of Dreams
George, José, and I joined Maidel in his car, waved goodbye to the Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos steel portraits, smiled at the huge Martí monument, and left the Plaza de la Revolución. It was time to visit the place where the Cuban baseball gods of my youth once played.
Baseball is a bonding agent among families in Cuba as well as in the United States. Parents take their sons and daughters to ball games. They, in turn, eventually take their own sons and daughters to baseball’s cathedrals as well, thus sustaining a tribal ritual continuously repeated through- out generations. Baseball is an ingredient of the chemical composition of many Cuban and American families, including my own. I had the fortune of sharing the love of baseball, first with my father and later with my son. It is an integral part of the family bonds we share.
When I lived in Cuba, my family rooted for the Almendares Scorpions of the Cuban Professional Baseball League and the Cuban Sugar Kings, Havana’s AAA International League baseball team. I would ritualistically listen to the play-by-play nightly radio broadcasts of their games or watch them on our family’s black-and-white TV set at home. Now and then, my father and I would go see them play at the old Cerro Stadium (the Sugar Kings in the summer and Almendares during the winter months).
Riding in Maidel’s official-looking black sedan toward the former Cerro Stadium, now called Estadio Latinoamericano, I couldn’t help but reminisce about the many baseball games my father and I once watched there. They were always special times for us.
My most vivid memory of a game at the stadium was from the fall of 1959, when the Cuban Sugar Kings played the Minneapolis Millers in a dramatic best-of-seven-games series for the Triple-A International League baseball championship crown.
The teams split the first six games of that most important series, with two going into extra innings and another decided on the final at bat. When an early October snowstorm and frigid weather in Minneapolis shifted the seventh (and deciding) game to Havana, my father wasted no time buying tickets for him and me to attend.
At eight years of age, game 7 could not arrive soon enough for me.
The day of game 7 was not the only thing that arrived that championship morning. Unfortunately, I awoke sick that day, having developed a cold with a fever overnight. My mother put me to bed, lathered my chest with Vicks VapoRub, and covered me with heavy wool blankets. She fed me an overdose of orange juice and even made the Cuban cure-all—chicken soup—trying all she could for me to feel better by game time. Nothing she did, however, worked.
My father, I thought, would have to attend the game without me.
Later that afternoon, my father arrived home from work, changed into his game clothes, and walked toward my room to check in on me. My mother stopped him just outside my bedroom door and, using the stern maternal voice I knew so well, warned him, “Don’t even think about taking Mayito to the game!”
“Of course, Chinita,” my father agreed, uncharacteristically sheepish.
Moments later, he walked into my room and sat on the bed next to me, wanting to talk about the lineups and pitchers announced for the game that night.
Then everything changed. When my mother, oblivious to our baseball conversation, walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower, my father—buoyed by this unexpected opportunity—flashed his we-are-about-to-do-something-really-crazy-grin and winked at me. He touched my forehead, realized my fever had diminished, and asked if I felt well enough to go to the game. Of course, I said yes!
What would you expect?
My father held his index finger in front of his lips, motioned for me to stay quiet, and asked me to dress quickly. I threw on my lucky Sugar Kings clothes, silently followed him out of my Sevillano home bedroom (shielded by the sound of my mother’s shower), and hurriedly climbed down the stairs toward the living room below. With no one around to see us, my father and I ran out the decorative glass and metal-framed front door I once shattered with an errant curveball pretending to be Orlando Peña and soon found ourselves in his blue-and-white 1957 Ford on our way to Cerro Stadium.
Fever or not, we were going to the Triple-A International League Baseball Championship Game!
The gloom and doom that clouded my emotions all day had suddenly changed into the excitement and joy of a most unexpected escape!
This excerpt is from Mario Cartaya's award-winning book, Journey Back Into The Vault: In Search of My Cuban Childhood Footprints. Reprinted with permission from the author, Mario Cartaya.
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