Friend reports on Cuba Visit. (Ulysses Pereira)

But on this journey that I don't enjoy at all, nostalgia treats me mercilessly, stabbing me mercilessfully at every step

and I'm traveling through time again and again without a damn break.
I know I need to go to Cuba again. I still have family in that place.

But don't leave the house.

I will not face again the nostalgia that caused me so much damage and if I have to, I will drive myself to my destination with a blindfold

... over my eyes and ear plugs.

I don't want to see more debacle or more destruction, I don't wanna see or hear more mutants driving electric scooters speaking incomprehensible slang.

I want to keep the image of my Havana, my neighborhood and my sidewalks intact, full of bushes and flowers and the houses without bars

and the portals fresh and clean and the smell of Crusselas in the afternoon and that of Galan de Noche at night

when I was going down Santos Suarez on the sidewalk of the Milagrosa with its doors open and its yellow and silent atmosphere.

I want to preserve those visions with their soundtracks because I'm an old man

and the old ones in a way, when we face these realities we prefer to live in nostalgia even though it bites us and causes us damage.