10 Best Gifts

10 Best Gifts

Always, always, it’s the thought that counts, right? So each gift we receive, chosen with love and appreciation, offered with generosity, is special. But some are more so, and today I’m going to share the best gifts I’ve been given over a lifetime. It’s hard to choose, though. For a recent ladies’ tea hosted at…

Get Lost in a Good Way

Get Lost in a Good Way

On Day 5 of our Return to Chiloé trip, we’re so far from civilization that we have practically no cell phone coverage and we had to bring cash to pay for our lodging at the Palafito Cucao. Since we plan to stay two nights here, we decide to forget the world today and just get…

Time in a Bottle

Time in a Bottle

We’re heading back to the Chiloé Islands today, where the more things change, the more they stay the same. “Everything changes…” echoes a folksong I referenced in Destiny at Dolphin Bay. And I realize it’s true: You just can’t keep time in a bottle. My husband and I have spent the day in Rilán, a…

A Legacy of Copper

A Legacy of Copper

“What would you like to have from this house when I move?” my mother asked every time I visited her in Maine. For a decade, I hardly liked to answer. Even if she meant downsizing more than dying, it seemed sort of greedy and grabby to put dibs on her possessions. But eventually, I mentioned…

The Christmas Dolphins

The Christmas Dolphins

In 1986 our family attended a Christmas Dolphins show at sunrise. While the military dictatorship in Chile hastened to its eventual demise, I was then a young mom living in a seaside hamlet where we still didn’t have telephones (or a bank, gas station, or pharmacy either, though that doesn’t enter into this story). But…

Beauty at the Beach

Beauty at the Beach

Far too much time has passed since I’ve spent an afternoon at our local beach. Some stretches of it have closed during this time of quarantine. Entire beach towns are blockaded. Though we’ve tried to behave and stay away, I miss—desperately—that singular beauty at the beach. Disappointing to say, we only fit in one beach…