Havana is a wonderfully strange place. The streets are potholed, the buildings crumbling and the people have a hard lot in life (understatement). Yet, the city somehow gets under your skin. More friendly and generous people - often with so little to offer materially - I've not met. And the cacophony of Havana - from the roar of 70 year old car engines to the blaring of salsa to the constant chatter in the streets - can be an assault on the ears, as can the smell of low-grade gasoline on the nose. With this in mind, I brought several Stimm designs to Cuba last week to gift to friends and ... they loved them!
The Stimm Scent Necklace seemed a natural piece to take with me, along with a few bottles of essential oil: rose, bergamot and lavender. It was a pleasure to see my old friend, Edenis, wearing one of our designs and - without thinking - bring the pendant to her nose, from time to time, to steal a whiff of something natural and calming. She chose the scent that suited her each day. A personal floral oasis in a city of wonderful chaos.
Big Yoel - a 6 foot four boxer who works in one of the cigar factories - is one of my oldest friends in the Cuban capitol. He's a man of few words with a heart of gold. An old softie, really. I visited Yoel's home, on this trip, and spent some time with his family, including his 9 year old daughter. To her, I gifted the Stimm Calming Ball, not because she needed calming - young children, innocent in how they see the world, can often teach us how to find a balance in life - but because the sound enchanted her. Like magic. You could see her focus completely on the gentle chimes , hearing nothing else and completely relaxed.
Without getting too philosophical, we read Shakespeare still, because he wrote about universal themes: love, loss, loyalty, betrayal. There's a bit of that in Stimm. Not those themes, but that which unifies us. We all need to find a balance in our lives, a calm in our everyday chaos, a reconnecting with our senses. There are no borders with this; it's innately human. Cuba is as different a culture to America and Europe as you can find and it was great to see friends wearing and interacting with Stimm designs. Viva Cuba.