By Veronica Vega
HAVANA TIMES – Lately, I often find myself remembering my bicycle, and how it shrunk the distances in Alamar, the community to the east of Havana where I still live.
Ah, those trips where every bend brought a new landscape! The joy of childhood games, the autonomy, my privacy intact even as I rolled by, looking at everything. The effort of pedaling, climbing the hills, attention focused on avoiding the potholes, the obstacles, the reckless drivers or pedestrians. The heat and the fatigue paled before that magical sensation of freedom. My sturdy red-and-black bicycle was an extension of myself.
Behind me on the back fender grille, with metal brackets fitted to the rear wheel for him to rest his feet on, sat my son. Holding tight to my waist, we talked, joked, or merely rode in silence, each one sunk in their own thoughts.
There in the school backpack sustained in his little hands, our cats traveled to their veterinarian visits.
How I miss those days! The beach was only a few minutes away, and the ride was a luminous whirlwind. The center of Havana was right there as well, once we’d passed through the tunnel on our bicycle bus. Nothing was very far away. Nothing was impossible.
I felt that life belonged more to me. That I had a dose of control over that mini-universe where public transportation means waiting, crowding, and