Xiomara Reinoso Gomez

There are days – particularly the weekend – when we want to sleep in. After a week of work, we want to get some rest. Often, however, this proves impossible. Street vendors make a point of getting you out of bed.

A number of comments made in response to previous posts of mine have got me thinking, particularly those referring to Cuba: The Way We Were, The Way We Are. I agree we shouldn’t judge people and that, when we criticize extremists, we can ourselves be guilty of extremism.

I spent my teenage years along with my sister in this town. We moved there when I was nine and she was twelve. I lived there till the age of 18. That was fifty years ago, back when homophobia seemed like an incurable disease in Cuba.

More than thirty years ago, I was married to a man. We lived together for a year and then split up. I liked him, but that wasn’t enough for us to go on. I needed to love someone, to love them deeply, to be able to live with them.

A romance may help dispel my sorrows…if it managed to awaken any illusions in me, that is. I’m not too sure it could, not because of my age but because of the disappointments I’ve suffered in life. I would have to give it a try. The problem is that the very few people available are part of my past, water under the bridge, as they say.

“The socialist bloc has collapsed! The Soviet Union has disintegrated!” These were the kinds of remarks the medical personnel at the hospital were making. I wasn’t paying any attention to them. My two-month-old child had been hospitalized…