The New Year That Is Yet to Arrive
Text and Photos By Nester Nuñez (La Joven Cuba)
HAVANA TIMES – After those first ten days, I still remember thinking that the new year would not arrive. That it would turn back at 11:59, leaving the enthusiasts with their buckets of water in hand, with the hug just about to happen, with the smile ready for the photo, and with WhatsApp connected to the daughter, the mother, or the friend who did welcome the first day in the usual way in that distant country, while here the phone clock would show the 32nd, and the next day the 33rd of December…
It wouldn’t be its intention to prolong 2024 with all its burdens but rather 2025 was going to wait until it could bring us truly good news, even if it had to show up in the middle of August, not announced by the sun over this sea that surrounds us, but emerging at midday from the sack of a farmer, along with a bunch of bananas and yuccas covered in caramel-colored soil:
“Old lady, I brought you the new year! I found it hanging from the soursop tree; I barely had to pick it, it was so ripe.”
And the old lady would wipe her hands on her worn apron and walk across the cool polished cement floor, because she likes to walk barefoot when it’s hot, to see if her husband’s new joke could match or surpass the thousands he has made in their 49 years together. But he’s telling the truth:
“But old man, this 2025 is a beauty! It’s so fresh, it looks wonderful… Do you want me to make it into a fricassee or light the charcoal to roast it?”
And then, before cutting it up and saving half to share with the few who make it to those hills, that countryside, and their hut (because a year, truthfully, isn’t shared so easily with just anyone, but with those closest to you, those who care for you and you for them; those who make you believe there is still something real and noble worth fighting and living for). She would hug her old man as if she had never done so before, almost as tightly as that first embrace when they were teenagers, the one they shared half-hidden behind the bamboo by the river, because on Sundays many young people gathered at the waterfall: cousins with their rowdy kids and neighbors who, after sharing so much of the good or the little, were almost like family too.
After hugging him, she would tell her old man, because it’s not good to let him think that receiving him with coffee and lunch ready is the greatest show of affection she can offer at this point:
“Old man… You know I love you, right?”
In that countryside, under that thatched roof and within those wooden walls, the last time anyone heard an “I love you” was in their granddaughter’s voice, through a cell phone speaker, from a city with an unpronounceable name where it was snowing.
“Alright, alright. I’ll take care of it,” he would respond right away, pointing to the caramel-colored dirt that fell from the yuccas onto the freshly mopped floor, because after a certain age, it’s preferable to turn words into actions. But the best thing about this new year they gift each other, perhaps in mid-August, is that it allows them to say redundant sweet nothings out loud—”Just like I love you.”
If not for opportunities like hugging and expressing love, it wouldn’t be worth saying “Happy New Year,” because in truth, that line in space/time is only symbolic; there’s no jump, no before and after. It’s a constant flow that speeds up or slows down, if anything, because of the experiences we live.
So then, how many New Years has the one who eats from the garbage bins lived? Did they ever stop counting? Was it in 2020, after the pandemic and the “reordering” reforms? Or is it still important to someone we don’t know? Does anyone love them? Could you tell me their name? What is their name?
I not only thought about it; I longed for the new year not to arrive automatically, rigidly, punctually like a timid preschooler. I preferred it to come to each person just when they had something truly worth celebrating, and in different ways. That in the house of a child without siblings, the new year would come wagging its tail, licking the snot off their face in gratitude for being received, even if it were a flea-covered stray puppy picked up from the streets.
And for the woman who cooks with firewood, that the new year would emerge from the egg she cracks over the already hot pan.
And for the one who pulls their hair out due to a smoking addiction and the cost of a pack of cigarettes reaching 1,200 pesos in January (virtually all they receive from their monthly pension), that the new year would arrive with a gifted cigar they can smoke to the last bit in their makeshift pipe.
And for the one who gives free tango lessons, that the new year would begin with the arrival of those novice dancers who don’t quite hear the music but return, like Gardel, to their first love, with their temples silvered by the snows of time, because twenty years is nothing, their feverish gazes, while a child at the door watches and learns in turn that life is but a breath, that the soul is better off clinging to a new or old love, to a sweet memory that cries, or that celebrates once more.
There will be those who wished for the new year to arrive no later than October, along with the opportunity to leave the country. Or those who see it arrive hand in hand with lots of money, a new business, something material. And there will be those who see the new year when they finally get over their ex; and those who wake up every day feeling like a lot of time has passed, because in the past hours they did something so good that it alone could keep them happy for an entire year. It would be boring for 2026 to arrive just because it has to, or to skip years and find ourselves in 2027 or 2030 without feeling that we have earned each year by fighting for what makes us happy. Most things are simple, although circumstances insist on being the worst.
First published in Spanish by Joven Cuba and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.