I’ve been enjoying this little space of mine for three years already. My blog. I’ve always thought of this place as something to be enjoyed. However, I had never realised that the way in which I’ve been enjoying it is that of a child. That’s it, I’ve moved in this blog like a child in a park, playing, running, staying for a while in the swings, getting bored of them, taking long naps under the trees. I know that my friends peep now and then. I also know that, since this is a public place, strangers may also be watching. None of this has ever stopped me from behaving as seriously or as playfully as my changing mood has asked me to do. This is my park and I’m a happy child. Never, however far my imagination could have reached, would I have thought of the possibility of coming one day just to find an empty block where my park used to be. That doesn’t happen in my world, no one steals big things. We, blessed people who live on the privileged side of the moon, never think about the most basic question regarding our beloved blogs, i.e., their right to exist. I had never realised that I’m really lucky because in my little universe there aren’t any naughty giants who can step on my blog with their big boots carrying it away on their soles to faraway places.
A couple of days ago, a good friend of mine covered the blinding light of freedom with his hand. It was just for a brief moment, long enough to let me open my eyes. He told me about a Cuban blogger, a philologist just like me. Her blog has been boycotted. Hers, and other Cuban blogs can be read outside Cuba but if you try to reach them from the island all you get is an error message. Of course, the first thing I did was to visit the link my friend gave me. And there she was, the Cuban girl. I saw her face, her name. I could see the shape of her words, I could hear her accent. Suddenly, I felt on me the huge semantic weight of the verb I’ve been using so lightly: to enjoy. I think we don’t get to grasp all its shades and it is important that we do: air, space, privilege, freedom. We (or at least I) don’t get the true sweet taste of justice. For justice is sweet, no doubt about that. It is only fair that we can express whatever it is we have inside without anyone assessing the convenience of our words. Freedom of speech… I know, we should all have it but that’s not the way it really works.
You may be as astonished as I am with my own naïveté. Don’t give me wrong, I’ve always known that freedom of speech is nonexistent in many places. However, I have to confess that I was bewitched by the idea of the internet. I thought of it as a wild animal that can’t be tamed.
I guess by now what you really want to see is the link to the Cuban blog. So here it is, together with another Cuban blog that uses a horse running free as their symbol. I hope you ENJOY this “new land” as much as I do, feeling lucky that nobody holds your feet to decide the pace of your steps.
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