Birthday

Photo: Claudio Fuentes Madan

Today Octavo Cerco marks a year of existence and if I could use the laptop to blow out the candles on a cake I would. Not only have I met many people whom I will love for the rest of my days, but I’ve also faced, at times, the painful task of writing without having the slightest idea how to do it. Now it’s like a vice, a challenge and a sense of freedom that delivers me from all ties and classifications: I write but I am not a writer, I report but I am not a journalist, I slip through to the network but I am not a computer expert, I criticize the government but I have no party, and I say what I please but I know I am not free.

I look at the balance of these last 12 months, and even though Ciro says that blogs don’t have birthdays I think they do, my life has taken a 180 degree turn and I have to celebrate it. But freedom is enigmatic and my cowardice, I have to admit it, has not turned to the same degree. I continue to close the windows, speak softly so strangers can’t hear me, with the same paranoia as always. However there is something good, now when I am most afraid is when I most throw myself into it, and that is something.

For the birthday I’ve received a gift: two strangers in the street stopped to talk to me about my blog. I can’t express the combination of terror and joy I felt, though I can’t adapt to the idea that people see me in the street and know that I am literally “in the thick of it”; I know in time I’ll get used to it. For now, I live in the moment, my blog is part of my life and as I said one day to Ivan when he hadn’t yet started his blog Desde la Habana: you will feel like it’s your child, you will not abandon it.