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A runner’s highs and lows in escaping Cuba [1]

['Periodismo De Barrio']

Date: 2025-07-09

This story was written by the Cuban filmmaker Carlos Melián Moreno and was originally published in Periodismo de Barrio on May 12, 2025. It has been republished in Global Voices under a media agreement.

I had been in Barcelona for almost a month when I decided to go for a run. The plan was to prepare myself, both mentally and physically, for what it meant to start over in an unfamiliar place. To prepare my body for a new home, a long journey.

The support from the organization that brought me out of Cuba, along with my two children and their mother, would end in five months. I wanted to be ready to endure once that support was gone, for myself and my children, or perhaps for them and then for me. This matters if I want to explore how I was feeling at the time, because I believe that the order of priorities (between oneself and one’s children) shifts. You become a child of yourself. And I speak of my children because, in a relatively short time, they became what allowed me to move forward, the substance that gave meaning to my life, and it hadn’t always been that way.

What I also liked about running was the idea of blending into my surroundings. The apartment blocks stretching from one end of the city to the other had a solidity that drew me in — a firmly geometric construction, unlike the unevenness often found in the white, smooth, hand-plastered walls built by Cuban masons.

I put on the only pair of shorts I had brought in my luggage and a T-shirt. I laced up my running shoes tightly, grabbed my phone, put on my headphones, and traced a route on Google Maps with my finger that would add up to three kilometers, four kilometers — or no, better yet, five. Five kilometers was what I used to run, recklessly, at the military schools I attended, and it seemed like a walk in the park.

I was thrilled to be part, even if just for a while, of those endless blocks of brick buildings. A child steps one foot into the sea, then the other, and as he moves forward, feeling the water brush against his belly or the sharp pricks of the jagged, sometimes painful, stones on the seabed under his feet, he begins to discover what it feels like to belong to that vast and perfect shimmer in the distance, that line of electric blue. It was an unfamiliar experience. The decaying condition of Cuban cities, like that of Havana, with rubble in the streets, trash on the sidewalks, worn-out, torn clothing, and people’s decaying teeth, had always seemed natural to me, all connected, as if one were the continuation of the other; a natural testimony to life moving steadily toward its end.

I reached the ground floor and closed the door carefully so as not to disturb the neighbors. We had been told as soon as we got into the house: no loud music, no using the washing machine after ten at night. The neighbors could report you. The key was not to bother them.

It was an ordinary building. There was no elevator, though it had spacious balconies and bright, airy apartments, which mattered for a family environment. The lobby had a high ceiling, but that was the only interesting feature in the common areas; the rest felt institutional, like a clinic. As you climbed the stairs to our floor, the ceiling got lower, the shapes turned square, prison-like, and lacked elegance. Some of the tiles on the landings were loose, slightly sunken, and each floor had windows with white aluminum frames. The unimaginative design of the common areas sometimes reminded me of buildings in Cuba, but at the time, I ignored anything that hinted at decay or bitterness. The memory of the economic collapse in Cuba was still too alive within me, with its cracked streets, rubble, and garbage everywhere. Barcelona was full of wide-angle views that made the case for a superior, vigorous society.

It’s not that I was always optimistic; most of the time, I felt anxious, afraid of our future. The aid was going to run out, and we had a return ticket to Cuba. In six months, we would need to do something for ourselves and against the organization that had brought us to Spain: stay, not go back to the island, not keep the promise I made to the agent who helped me kickstart the process.

I was disappointed in myself for not being transparent with the organization that supported me and for making them look bad before immigration authorities, not only because it could harm the organization’s reputation, but also because it could close the door for other Cubans. I was deeply grateful for the policy and humanitarian intent that had brought us to Europe, but at the same time, the option of returning to Cuba grew darker in my mind. It was the choice of a suicide; there wasn’t a single ray of light left in that hallway.

I had returned to Cuba on five other occasions carrying a sorrow I never fully questioned. Boarding the plane back was like returning to an unwanted, mournful place, and at some point, I always told myself I had to make sure not to stay, not to tarnish the program that had gotten me out of Cuba so that other colleagues could benefit from it, or that I could do it again.

I was running to cement all that, to put it in a dark corner. Leaving the island out of desperation, suffocation, and the urgent need to save something within myself shifted my perspective. The mindset I once forced on myself —thinking of “the others” — was vanishing; it was an insignificant element on the horizon. I repeated the mantra: “You are not going back to Cuba, no. You’re not going back.” And I built a moral basis to allow it for myself: you’ll do it to take care of your children and to save your body. Your children and your body are your homeland. Find the passage, lower your head so they don’t see you, and escape silently.

I didn’t want to see myself or my children in a situation where I wasn’t the owner of my own body. Or to witness how years of work in my film career were threatened or fading away under state security harassment.

Although we had temporary documentation and a residency status already in process, it stated that we had no right to work. Our children didn’t attend school because there were no available spots for them until September, and we had arrived in Spain in April.

Each week that passed brought us closer to the moment when we would be on our own, and we didn’t know what that meant. I looked at the people, at the surroundings, and nothing told me how to do it. The people helping us through an organization called Taula Per Mexic didn’t know how to assist us in finding work or getting a work permit; neither did those working in institutions meant to guide immigrants. They provided guidance, but their speech was ambiguous, always dropping uncertain hints like, “It will be difficult,” or “Don’t give up calling …” There were thousands of people in our situation, and every path we tried ended in failure.

***

We arrived in Spain in the spring, and I feared the winter. I didn’t know it. I also ran because thinking of the cold made the ground shift beneath me, and I wanted to feel like I could face it.

I had seen an interview online with a homeless man who lived in a tent. He explained that going for a run every day helped him overcome his situation; he lived under a bridge. When he ran, his body released chemicals that brought him joy. I used to feel the same way. I had lows and panic attacks because of the delays in my paperwork, the calls to the immigration office to apply for political asylum that no one answered, or when my smallness in that environment whispered in my ear that I would never again be able to pursue my calling: to live by writing stories and filming them. When this closed in on me, when I was headed toward the final possibility — ending it all — the first thing that came to mind was my duty toward my children, and the second was to wait a little longer, until the next day. “Wait to run,” I told myself. “You’ll see the sky clear up.” Going for a jog at dawn wouldn’t fix anything, I knew that, but it would stretch the horizon. It was something artificial, like taking a drug, but it helped me wait, strengthen my body, and gain serenity.

I remember how music would make me feel while running. It made me forget everything. I listened to Los Van Van, Latin jazz pieces, Gustav Mahler’s 5th Symphony, songs by Roots, Sepultura, Pantera’s Walk, Freddy Mercury, José Luis Cortés, and tracks from “Un verano sin ti” by Bad Bunny. I didn’t listen to Cuban music because I was a patriot or because of my roots; I had rejected that or was trying to free myself from it. I listened for its musical quality, for its escapist power.

Among them all, Freddy Mercury was the one who moved me the most; he gave me a high. When I listened to him, I felt like crying, and I let it out. I cried like I had seen evangelicals cry in Baptist churches, and sometimes I danced or made head movements that threw me off balance or broke the rhythm of my jog, or the sync I had managed to establish between my body’s movement and my heartbeat.

At the same time, the city’s imprint ran toward me. The image of a version of Europe that seemed vibrant and invited me to join it, to join the First World. I felt it coming, and opened the doors to it to save me. It didn’t matter that it was a false notion (was it?); it was a favorable, optimistic performance. And I had the impression that everyone felt the same way. Those façades, the clean avenues, the music, the literature, the cinema, the long, tall rows of trees on both sides of the streets — they all had a hidden intention of encouraging us, bringing us back on track, telling us: look, beauty exists despite the fact that “we all go through what you’re going through now,” “you’re not alone,” “you’re not special,” “run and don't give up, like we all had to do.”

I was trying to interpret that message as best as possible, because I wasn’t ready yet. It was something similar to what I felt in Cuba when I entered a room full of people who, in Havana, gravitate around a European embassy, and there, standing and looking at everyone, I didn’t know how to hold a glass of wine. A feeling of bastardry moved toward me; it was like a train blowing fumes of smoke into the sky, one of those regional trains that enter tunnels dug into the breasts of the hills.

It was still nighttime, the weather was pleasant, and I had just warmed up my muscles. I improvised. I was on the verge of a minor injury but didn’t know it yet, and I ran in one leap, guided by the map, impatient to conquer everything by running.

My eyes were pleased to see the dimly lit city. It inspired me to imagine myself in a new game. To disappear into the night. And I think the dawn, because of its proximity to the day, helped me believe it. To start an education that began in the ritual of the early morning and ended in the splendor and beauty of that city that was revealing itself as the sun rose and slid across the rooftops, attics and façades. I ran down a narrow street with the sidewalk marked by a row of benches and contiguous saplings no more than three meters high.

I ran past empty benches where, in the afternoons, I had seen a few elderly people reappear time and again. Or maybe it was the same solitary old man. They would sit and stare at the white wall in front of them, holding a cane or using a two-wheeled walker to keep from falling. As I passed by, I saw them turn toward me, waiting for everything and expecting little. They expected little from everything — from the present, from the future — with that bitterness I assumed was natural in the elderly.

I ran beneath small trees with dark leaves that would never turn green. I took one of the shopping streets downhill, passing brightly lit supermarkets, fruit shops run by Chinese vendors with shutters pulled all the way down, dental clinics, Latin food stores, furniture shops, paint stores, a Hipercor, a Corte Inglés outlet, and a wide, empty avenue. I might’ve mixed up the order of one or two, but I won’t check because, in general, that’s what happens in a dream: the shops, the objects, the places shift, even within the same dream, in the very moment they unfold, and that’s exactly how I felt. In a dream. Everything was moving, and I ran to stop it.

The avenues of the new and unfamiliar city felt safe. I didn’t sense any threat, even though there should have been. I didn’t fully believe in anything, and that kept me going. Cities in Spain were fairly safe, but evil existed everywhere. Where was it? I wanted to know so I could keep it away.

I followed the direction Google Maps was giving me and headed toward Diagonal Avenue, where they were starting to put up barriers to begin street repairs, though to me, they seemed brand new. I ran until I felt I had used up half of my energy reserves, then turned around. Halfway back, I felt I couldn’t go any farther; I could barely breathe and had to stop to catch my breath. I sighed, “So this will be my new home,” and then added, “Yes, I want this to be my new home.” “What will it take for my children to grow up here?” I was certain that this was what I wanted.

I put my hands on my knees and looked ahead, where a metro exit was spewing out strangers on their way to work. At that point, all I could see was vitality everywhere. Down there, it was rush hour; thousands of city dwellers moving from one place to another. I knew that with just a couple more runs, I’d get past this breathlessness, and my body would start asking for longer and longer distances.

It was on the way back that I felt the most joy — I gave it my all, let everything out. That’s when I got injuries in my thighs, calves, and ankle, which kept me from running again for a week or two. These injuries played with my limits; they were the first jolts of reality I received from the outside world, from the physical realm, the one that reminds you of the limits time imposes on the body. Limits beyond thoughts, beyond the anxieties piling up in my mind, which I could trick with tactics like running. These limits, embodied in my 44-year-old body, sometimes felt like greater signs to me, warnings sent from the future. Something like: “How much strength do you have left to face and build a new life from scratch?”

One day, while I was jogging and listening to Queen, a beautiful woman, also a runner, with a perfect physique, held my gaze. Her intense look merged with the music, “Under Pressure,“ at that wonderful part where Freddie Mercury lets loose, rips off his shirt, and starts pleading for love, love, love (Love, love, love, looooove!). Just three or four meters later, my right foot hit an uneven patch. I went sprawling forward. I fell, scraping my palms and my knee. The music vanished as the headphones slipped from my head and landed several feet away. In their place, there was no silence, but the grimy noise of traffic.

In Cuba, from time to time, a reading, a film, or a script I was working on would take me far from home, from my surroundings, from my children, my relationship, and the problems of that country — and then, suddenly, something would pull me back to the present. It could be the arrest of a colleague and their subsequent interrogation, which had become more frequent lately. A Suzuki motorcycle like the ones used by plainclothes state security agents, a police car near my home, or a new decree-law to tighten control over the population.

I looked around, and looked at my hands. They were burning badly. Behind me rose one of the great icons of the booming Barcelona: the AGBAR tower. A sombre, blue-glass building with 34 floors and a height of 145 meters, vying with the Sagrada Familia for the title of the city’s architectural symbol. It was the first moment I felt I wasn’t experiencing a rise, but a fall. An abrupt and mediocre fall. My time in Barcelona was the hollow crack that comes from cheap earbuds that break easily.

[END]
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[1] Url: https://globalvoices.org/2025/07/09/a-runners-highs-and-lows-in-escaping-cuba/

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