Lightning Speed

ASIDE: Today’s blog is in response to Yoani Sanchez’s post on Generacion Y on May 28 -- http://desdecuba.com/generationy/ For a while, I'm going to try and respond to blogs coming out of Cuba instead of newspaper articles, as they are also news.

What if the pace of our days was different? On May 28, Yoani Sanchez wrote in her blog, Generacion Y out of Havana, about a particular mode of transportation in Cuba – a particular type of hitchhiking. The blog ‘s title is translated, in the English Version, as “Taking Advantage of the Light.” At first, I thought I was going to read a tale about how Cubans have to take advantage of the daylight in Cuba because of power outages, and of course, there’s a double entendre in there somewhere, but what she means is more concrete – having more to do with street and sidewalk. It’s about how people in Cuba harass people in cars at stoplights for a ride. [Notice my interpretation (harass) is completely American – I admit it].

Some drivers give in to the “harassment” but ask for favors in return (get “harassed” in return – they feel a girl up, for example), while others drivers simply make up excuses. Some women (because, as Yoani explains, it’s easier to get a ride if you’re wearing a short skirt), have decided to use their own two feet and walk and walk and walk. Which slows everything down, but which, sometimes is worth the longer route; the wait.

Which brings me back to my question – what if we lived like that? How would that pace affect our lives? I can think of a million ways it would drive me up the wall. Me who, after living in Manhattan for nearly a decade, almost died of boredom my first year back in Miami (despite it being my hometown). People were slow, they arrived late, and worse, they didn’t even have any excuses – they simply arrived late to a get together or a meeting and that was that. They weren’t having to hitchhike at red lights, they all had their own cars.

Here’s a story: The other day I went to a gathering in Miami Beach. Everyone was late of course (a cultural phoneme, I’m telling you). Many of the people at this get-together were Cuban-born dissidents. Once everyone finally arrived, the BBQ and the talking started up and one young woman in particular began talking about how much she missed Cuba. She had come to Miami twelve years ago, dreaming then of a better place with opportunity. Today, she feels the urge, daily, to return to Cuba. “People may not have jack over there, but they have fun,” she said, and for the first time that day a big smile appeared on her face as she expressed the kind of joy people have in Cuba. It seems like a cliché. And, really, it could all be nostalgia – a dangerous and complicated thing because the land is always greener on the other side of the sea, so to speak. But, perhaps she had a point; and perhaps it has something to do with the forced pace at which people in Havana must/are forced to live. And yet, are they really forced? That’s another questions all together (about why a revolt by the people against a dictator has not come sooner, ages ago. But, again, another topic for another day).

On my particular end – I think to myself: How would life be different for me as a writer if the pace were here, in the States, as it is in Cuba? How would it be for bloggers? One of the reasons Yoani’s blogs are so good is because she’s forced to write them out before hand, before even getting to internet space and time. Or, if not writing them out before, at least thinking about them for a good amount of time. Here, everyone has constant access to high speed wireless from almost everywhere . The result: American twittees (twits?) and face-bookies seem to write constantly but you’re hard pressed to find something of substance. Would our blogs be better if we were forced to slow down?

But then again, would blogging exist? Would the internet exist? If we Americans didn’t live at the pace at which we do, taking advantage of every bit of light, everywhere.

Perhaps we are lucky (or unlucky, depending on which way you look at it; I’m going to stick with lucky) enough to simply have more light to draw power from.