The complex thing here is that it is not about forgetting a person, but about removing an entire country from your bones, from your liver.
By Yunior García Aguilera (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – Those who have had a toxic relationship desire with all their soul to be able to say: it’s over, a clean slate. However, I wish forgetting were so simple! It usually happens that the more you try to leave behind that story that hurts you, the more you remember it. To get your ex-partner out of your head, there are dozens of manuals. The complex thing here is that it is not about forgetting a person, but about removing an entire country from your bones, from your liver.
No supermarket sells the famous Coca-Cola of oblivion. Even those who claim to have taken it often have relapses. I have met several compatriots who swear to me: “I had disconnected from Cuba, compadre, until (the protests of) July 11 or November 27, 2021.” That means, that, in reality, they had not forgotten. They had simply put Cuba on pause.
Some neurologists claim that the brain never forgets. The memories are still there, trapped in collections of neurons called “engram cells.” The illusion of forgetting occurs when the circuits that connect these sets are broken. It is as if a path leading to an intricate place were filled with grass. The place still exists, what we can’t find is the path.
I know of Cubans who keep their phones on Cuban time, even though they live in France. There are others who spend hours digging through Facebook, more aware of what is happening in Marianao than the Marianao residents themselves. It doesn’t matter if you have an Australian passport, you are probably aware of the relationship between Lazaro and Yarelis; or Fernando, the pianist from Guanabacoa; or the dismissal of Lisandra, the “Cuban Amy Winehouse.”
Some, with greater political awareness, are unable to sleep all night every time they arrest an activist, and wear out their brains thinking of a thousand ways to bring down the dictatorship. But, let’s be honest, even those of us most committed to the fight for democracy have, more than once, felt deeply disappointed and exhausted. Above all, when after so much misery and abuse, we see thousands of Cubans marching and shouting slogans, trying to defend the indefensible. That is why we read comments like: “Cuba has no remedy” or “the people have the dictatorship they deserve.”
Those who opt to turn the page avoid websites and profiles that remind them of that piece of land with more marabou bush weeds than palm trees. They try to get the algorithm to do its thing and send them different content. “You’re a masochist,” I am told all the time by a friend who has been successful, according to him, in tricking Zuckerberg and Elon Musk into getting the networks to show him news about Dubai, instead of talking to him all the time about Jatibonico, Cuba.
The second piece of advice from successful forgetters is to assimilate into their new context. I met a girl recently who has only been in Madrid for a couple of months and she is already more Spanish than Lola Flores. In a single sentence she is able to say vale (okay), tío (dude), hostias (damn it all), majo (nice), currante (hard-working) and even gilipollas (douchebag). The only problem is her spelling, the girl puts the Z wherever she wants. But I won’t be the one to judge her. She has her own reasons to prevent the Cuban from coming out of her pores. No Madrid cat will take her as a local, but she will heal the occasional wound.
The third and final step to hide Cuba in the drawer of amnesia is to achieve that abstract and idyllic condition of being a “citizen of the world.” It sounds great, the problem is achieving it. Let’s see… I myself am against chauvinism and it seems very ridiculous to me to try to fit “in a Spanish way” with the stereotypes of what they call Cubanidad. For me, being Cuban is a singularity, not an identity that functions as a straitjacket. But, if getting a single residency, a single citizenship, is already a hell of a bureaucratic hassle, then imagine achieving them all and declaring yourself cosmopolitan!
Despite everything, some claim to have cured themselves of Cuba using this formula: evasion, assimilation, universality. If for the sake of your mental health you think it is necessary to permanently bury the memory of the place where you were born, well… try it. But if you have already tried everything and Cuba is still beating in your brain, then, like me, you suffer from chronic Cubanitis. We have to continue doing everything possible and the impossible so that this beautiful land is a place worth remembering and where it is worth returning to… someday.
Translated by Translating Cuba.
Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.
