Veronica Vega’s diary

All writers dream with launching a book without having people yawn out of boredom. If capturing the attention and earning the admiration of an audience is a success in and of itself, then poet Antonio Salvador (born in Puerto Rico, but every bit as Cuban as the rest of us) should no doubt feel very satisfied.

I have just seen a documentary that should be shown on Cuban television during prime time. It would be a good indication that we are trying to “change everything that should be changed.” Produced by Matraka Producciones, “Al final del camino” (At the End of the Road), addresses the delicate issue of old age in Cuba.

Some days ago, I had what I consider to be one of the most important experiences of my life. I heard an album by the band Quidam Pilgrim for the first time. In the pieces, luminous English lyrics rush through a Celtic soundscape resonating with angels and wandering souls. The songwriters and performers, however, are Cuban!

Yesterday, while walking down a path cutting through a field of grass, I saw a little girl coming towards me and, all of a sudden, I felt my own past and future strike me like an enormous wave. I remembered what I was like when I was that age, recalled how I looked at and what I expected from the world back then.

I don’t generally like to say that I believe in “God”, because the concept has too often been abused. I also don’t like telling people to “stay positive” – not only because the expression has become a cliché, but also because I’ve had to go through some rather rough patches myself, and I don’t take people’s problems lightly.

Many dramatic scenes are played out on Cuban buses. A space one if forced to inhabit for a relatively brief period of time, it tends to create a false and circumstantial sense of intimacy among strangers. There, we breathe the same air, become privy to the conversations of others (sometimes even their thoughts), rub bodies, share smells and emotions.

I was in a truck-bus with my son headed for Havana’s municipality of Cotorro. On the way, a couple, two teenagers who had shown signs of friction when they got on at the stop, began to argue.

I don’t doubt a visit the family planning clinic can restore a couple’s hopeful outlook on life, but, once they step out of this clinic, this couple is going to need much more than hope to build a future for their child.

Every time I see plane-lights trailing across the night’s sky, I imagine it is Antoine de Saint Exupery, the author of the “The Little Prince”, travelling on the back of a comet, looking down at this old world and reflecting on how little humanity has changed since his disappearance from the physical universe.

The air has been filled with strange vibrations these past days, there’s a murmur among people who live on the ground floors of tenement buildings in the neighborhood of Alamar, people who have expanded their homes into the common areas surrounding these buildings.