Since my arrival two weeks ago on this other piece of Cuba called Miami, I have barely had a free moment as I try to fill up the void left by the two decades since my last visit with happy reunions and long conversations.
I have had the honor and the pleasure of being the guest on prestigious radio and TV programs as well as being able to put faces to all those very familiar voices I have heard only through radio from a gracious “voluntary insile*” in my apartment in Nuevo Vedado. But above all there has been the pleasure of once again seeing those dearly beloved people who suddenly vanished from our daily landscape.
Reconnecting with a part of our culture, transported by our compatriots to this other shore, has renewed my spirit. It is true that, to my great regret, I have neglected my blog a bit, but “travelling lightly” has made me dependent on foreign technology (everything from a virus to a lack of punctuation marks). This has limited me greatly, for which I ask forgiveness of my readers. I feel very welcome wherever I go and in my “romantic fantasies” I imagine an archipelago knitted together with bridges of tolerance and reconciliation, forever linking our two shores. Bridges of love, something all Cubans need.
*Translator’s note: “Insile” here is a play on words, the opposite of “exile.”
14 February 2014
