Author: Leonid Lopez

That magic sometimes occurs, but almost always, when we look back, we continue being the same people, only now eating McDonald’s quarter-pounders and wearing newer jeans. However, there’s another change occurring; now I see it more clearly.

After a war, one is be able to exercise judgment, but the Cuban individual remains on a war footing under the physical threat of being invaded by the United States, and under the ideological threat of the ideas of capitalism-so peacetime never comes.

The temperature was 2 degrees centigrade, the lowest temperature I’d experienced since arriving in Japan. I was in the town of Nagano, the place where my wife spent the majority of her early childhood and all of her school years up until the University.

To my astonishment (almost fright), when I looked at her I knew that this is where I should be. I still could not balance out the pluses and minuses, nor did I want to have to. Life is unfurling before me, and I’m living it. There are no stones in the path, or oases, just the regularities of the landscape.

The bus arrived on time, and I couldn’t believe that it took me to the hotel for free. I had some dollars but I didn’t change them in the airport because the signs didn’t clearly indicate where the places were, and everything was a bit narrow and strange to me.