A few months ago, I shared that we traveled from Coquimbo, Chile, to Canada and the US on a short furlough. Now—six months, 34,000 km, 44 different beds, and countless letters, emails, and text messages later—we have finally arrived home. Or did we leave home to return here? Although I often feel ambivalent about the…
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…
Among the many themes in my books, the motif of HOME—or perhaps more precisely, houses—surprises me most with its broad-spectrum presence. I never planned to weave those ideas into the writing, was hardly even aware of them. But in this homesick world, maybe that’s not unexpected at all. Recently I suffered an attack…of nostalgia. Did…
Today we’re putting out to sea. Not only are we “off to ‘sea’ the world, off to find our dreams”—as Alvin and the Chipmunks sang, anybody with me here?—we literally live in a sea world. Especially in Chile, our world revolves around the sea. That’s not the only reason, of course, that almost all my…