{"id":2140,"date":"2021-01-08T19:31:34","date_gmt":"2021-01-08T23:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.spanglishvoces.com\/?p=2140"},"modified":"2021-03-08T18:01:26","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T22:01:26","slug":"my-diaspora-nostalgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spanglishvoces.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/08\/my-diaspora-nostalgia\/","title":{"rendered":"MY DIASPORA: NOSTALGIA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our professor wrote us an email with a bad-mood-warning kind of vibe, letting us know that not everyone going through this pandemic is on equal footing, that there are poor people crowded together dying in the streets of European cities. And the email I don\u2019t write says, that\u2019s right, professor, we aren\u2019t all living through this pandemic in the same way. I don\u2019t want to appear overly stung by his appeal to think of others nor do I want to dig my finger into his pain. The professor hasn\u2019t been to the street where my family lives in Havana; he hasn\u2019t seen the lacunas that pervade my memories. Mr. Professor can\u2019t imagine the neighborhood that was built in 1910. He doesn\u2019t see how neighbors have each done what they can, when they\u2019ve been able. Balconies have appeared on multi-story buildings with poorly fitted pipes poking out all over the place, and sometimes there\u2019s water and sometimes there isn\u2019t, and when there is, it\u2019s been polluted by broken drainage pipes. We\u2019re not all living through this pandemic in the same way, but I didn\u2019t need the email the professor sent me from his beach house in order to remember that. <\/span><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t answered many of the emails I\u2019ve gotten over these last few weeks\u2013some entirely selfish ones, some superficial. No, professor, it\u2019s not the same to be living through the pandemic in the company of family and love as it is to be doing it alone, having to dry your hopeless tears, and to decide every day to keep going because that\u2019s your lot and that\u2019s what your grandmother would have done, were she in your place, and what your mother does every day, braving this season of silence. But the pandemic isn\u2019t about me, which is why I don\u2019t answer this professor\u2019s untimely emails. It\u2019s why I don\u2019t tell him about my family and our old neighborhood. The pandemic is about everyone, professor, not just you, and that\u2019s how I will try to live through it. <\/span><\/p>\n

One of my other professors calls me at least once a week. She asks if I\u2019ve made the rent, if I\u2019ll make it next month. She reminds me to eat well. To change the subject, she tells me about her mother and how the old lady continues to clean her house and look after things, while her mother\u2019s neighbor does her grocery shopping. We talk politics; it\u2019s her and me putting the world back together. Even though she knows more about the world than I do, actually about everything, she always listens to me, enthralled. She tells me about what her undergraduate students are up to with the same reverence as when she quotes Simone de Beauvoir. <\/span><\/p>\n

The news tells us that the countries that have dealt best with the pandemic have women as prime ministers, presidents, and leaders. I believe it. Ms. Professor doesn\u2019t just call me once a week. She calls many people. She talks to anyone who has a few minutes to chat. And she told me that it\u2019s good to have hope. And I believe her.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

II<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShow time! Se\u00f1oras y se\u00f1ores<\/i>. Ladies and gentlemen. Muy buenas noches, damas y caballeros, tengan todos ustedes.<\/i> Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tropicana, the most fabulous nightclub in the WORLD \u2026 presents \u2026\u201d. The first pages of Tres tristes tigres <\/i>by Cabrera Infante take me back to my grandmother Silvia\u2019s back patio in Marianao. I\u2019m running with my cousins, I\u2019m discovering new streets. I wet the bed some nights and listen to my auntie grumble in the morning while she strips the sheets from the cot she\u2019d made up for me. <\/span><\/p>\n

With the phone ringing at all hours in the land of the living, I\u2019ve thought plenty lately about my departed. I\u2019ve thought about my black grandmother, Mariana, who wanted to see me born white; about M\u00e1ximo and Juan, my grandfathers of contrasting lineage and blood, who take me by the hand to the tobacco meadow, to the planted fields and up to the hut at the top of Las Delicias, to the Tropicana from another century. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not so bad, this feeling of nostalgia for Havana. It\u2019s not so bad to miss the sun on the seafront promenade and the sunsets of the cities where you\u2019ve lived. It\u2019s OK to think about what might have been, at least for a little while. I tell myself it\u2019s OK to talk with my dead, to yearn for them. I\u2019m telling you, but just so that I can tell myself, too. It\u2019s OK to feel bad, to be distraught, to not understand what happened or know where the world is going after this. I don\u2019t have any more words to console others, or to console myself. And I ask myself if I am alive or if I<\/i> am the one who has died, living in someone else\u2019s memory\u2013in the memory of a granddaughter who thinks of me in her own uncertain future, while she tells someone else: it\u2019s OK to reminisce, it\u2019s not wrong to feel this way. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

III<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

What is Russian roulette? You have a revolver, and you load it with a single bullet. You bring it to your temple and you pull the trigger, hoping that the bullet doesn\u2019t strike, that it doesn\u2019t blow the brains out of the person firing. Russian roulette isn\u2019t Russian. It\u2019s a metaphor for life and, at the end, like life, there is a macabre inclination toward hope: if the gun has five bullets, the probability of coming out unscathed is 4 to 1. It\u2019s like life, where every decision seems like squeezing a trigger or coming to the edge of a precipice, waiting to take on the risk of what\u2019s in the realm of the possible. You could say that Russian roulette is a bet for hope. Even in our darkest hour we believe we will come out unhurt. And if not, at least we will have enjoyed those three seconds of intense yearning for a life that never was. <\/span><\/p>\n

Longing changes, that much we know. One day you miss being alone and the next you long for your friends. Nostalgia settles and resettles. It\u2019s the sunset; it\u2019s the sea. I know because my nostalgia roams. Sometimes it comes apart in my mouth; sometimes I want to translate it into a song. Buika croons: el amor es simple y a las simples cosas, las devora el viento<\/i>. And my nostalgia is dispelled and, for a few seconds, I feel free. And I tell myself: feel however you want in these days of frustration and inequality. Feel free to think of your dead and cry and dance and read and drink tea and do nothing. Feel free to have hope when you can. Have that at least, that freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Jesse Tomlinson<\/strong> is a Canadian literary translator and interpreter living in Guadalajara, Mexico. Her portfolio of Spanish into English translations can be found here: tomlinsontranslations.com\/portfolio\/publications<\/a>. You can follow her here: @tom_trans<\/a>, jessedoinginsta<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jesse Tomlinson es una traductora literaria e int\u00e9rprete canadiense que vive en Guadalajara, M\u00e9xico. Su portafolio de traducciones del espa\u00f1ol al ingl\u00e9s se puede encontrar aqu\u00ed: tomlinsontranslations.com\/portfolio\/publications<\/a>. S\u00edguela aqu\u00ed: @tom_trans<\/a>, jessedoinginsta<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"Dainerys Machado Vento<\/strong> is a Cuban journalist, writer, and literary researcher. She is the author of Las noventa Habanas,\u00a0<\/i>a collection of short stories published by Katakana Editores in 2019. Dainerys is a PhD Candidate in Literary, Cultural, and Linguistic Studies at the University of Miami. You can follow her here: @Dainerys_MV<\/a>, dainerys_mv<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dainerys Machado Vento es una periodista, escritora e investigadora literaria cubana. Es la autora del libro de cuentos Las noventa Habanas <\/i>(Katakana Editores, 2019). Es candidata a Doctora en Estudios Literarios, Ling\u00fc\u00edsticos y Culturales por la Universidad de Miami. S\u00edguela aqu\u00ed: @Dainerys_MV<\/a>, dainerys_mv<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our professor wrote us an email with a bad-mood-warning kind of vibe, letting us know that not everyone going through this pandemic is on equal footing, that there are poor people crowded together dying in the streets of European cities. 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