miami

There’s something about Miami. It welcomes you by not making too much of a fuss about you. “Oh, so there you are,” it seems to say. “Great. Dale, Chico. Te veo después y nos tomamos un café." And you know, it’s happy to see you. My favorite spot to welcome the day in all of Miami is not anywhere near the infamous SoBe of the tanned and gorgeous. It’s not on a boat gliding past tall downtown buildings on bayside waters. It’s sitting on the sidewalk facing the huge, colorful, exhuberant sculpture at the entryway of the otherwise unremarkable Dadeland Metrorail Station in South Miami. It ́s fittingly called “Welcome” and stands amid the light gray concrete on mornings when my own bed wants nothing to do with me and, as my mother would say, “el que me fume, pierde el vicio.” And here's the trick: you sit on the sidewalk in front of it with your newspaper and your strong, sugary, Cuban coffee... you look at it for awhile... and pretty soon you start to feel happy and... god forbid... optimistic. By then you’ll look a little crazy to couples walking by with their strollers or their dogs, so taking a few ...