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Nothing like running errands on a Sunday afternoon to get a crash course in the weekend habits of Chileanos in Santiago. After a four-hour nap I woke up to my trusty shortwave radio blasting bad 1980s hits. I dragged my disconcerted self out of a bed which faces the balcony overlooking the Cerro Santa Lucia where I was already ...
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Feb 7, 2011
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Santiago, Chile – There are many things mi mama taught me – many of which I wasn't prepared to learn until adulthood, but slowly the knowledge seeps into the roots. One of the most important things she taught me is to be fluent in Spanish. We struggled over it. At school I spoke English, at home, it was only Spanish. She didn't ...
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Feb 7, 2011
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Today would have been my friend Ellen's birthday. She would have been 79 years old. Had she been alive, had I died instead, I would be almost 34 years old and somehow it would have seemed less of a practical joke the universe played on both of us. I welcome it, this dance with death she left me to grapple with for the rest of my life, every year as I think on how fleeting ...
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Jan 27, 2011
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I run to stand still. I pray the bus will be late, but knowing the driver, I lock up the house fast, head on into the sun and unabashed blue sky - my only witness to my lateness. I speed up and run when the hand lights up red. The sun is beaming and suddenly I feel fully in my body, but there is no time to waste and so heel to toe I arrive ...
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Jan 21, 2011
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If you saw it coming, then why did you do it? Why did you wait? The four boxes of pizza fell from heaven, slipped right through your fingers while you pecked on your phone, it, too, tumbling to the ground along with your slice half-eaten, the grease making a profile against the brown bag crumpled at the top from your clutching. The whole thing ...
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Jan 20, 2011
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Is it possible that a dream can slip and fade away? Like fortune and the winged ankles of Hermes is it something that needs to be grasped on its way in and not on its way out?
The sun and blue skies of the San Francisco Bay welcomed us to the New Year where we still find ourselves in a "holding pattern," waiting for our next step. "...
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Jan 7, 2011
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I have this paranoia of missing the bus. It's more a fear of being left behind to be honest. It's not something I experience when I'm driving anywhere, late and harried, and somehow my fear of missing something at the other end kicks in. Of course, the show can't start without me, so that mitigates any anxiety. As a result I'm always early for the bus, super ...
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Jan 6, 2011
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The irony isn't lost on me. I now do temporary work for a company that makes bridges. "Good afternoon, T.Y. Lin. One moment, I'll connect you."
T.Y. Lin is a civil and structural engineering firm that did the engineering behind the Rio Dulce bridge, overseen by Chuck Simon who personally flew down to Guatemala when a crack was reported in the bridge. He was met with helicopters ...
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Dec 31, 2010
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Today I hit the pavements of San Francisco as the sun refused to turn up from the gray blankets. I wound my multi-colored cotton Guatemalan scarf that really doesn't do much to fend off the cold around my neck and braced for the four temp and staffing agencies where I would be dropping off my resume. "Looking for work should never shame you," my mother's internalized voice reminded me. "You should always be grateful for work, no matter what it is."
I put on the poker face of over-politeness and do it the Guatemalan way: I drop in. I wanted to give a face to a name and to be honest, ...
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Dec 14, 2010
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There were two things I quickly learned not to do in my first year living in the United States: not go around telling people how much you loved them and, even worse, telling their secrets to other people. For both you gained a reputation that preceded you as someone "loose" with things that should be held close and away from prying eyes and deaf ears. I remember both ...
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Dec 10, 2010
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