by Eileen | Apr 8, 2020 | Uncategorized
Way back in a recess of my mind I am sitting in the backyard on East 19th Street in Brooklyn and it is early summer. My grandmother is sitting in one of those woven beach chairs with the light aluminum frame, like the one she uses when she sits out in front of her...
by Eileen | Feb 28, 2020 | Uncategorized
In talking about the civil unrest, this fríend of a friend asked me what it would take for me to leave Chile. And it’s a good question. For a while I was seeing a gringo exodus, but it was mainly the same people that always leave, end of the contract, short-termers,...
by Eileen | Feb 15, 2020 | Uncategorized
Curtains! Not a scintillating topic. Except why do I need curtains? And why have I spent fifteen minutes out of the last several days trying to get them back from the place I left them, and why do I leave empty handed, the smell of burnt coffee in my nostrils, as I...
by Eileen | Dec 19, 2018 | Uncategorized
Yesterday, as I periodically do, when nearly killed by a flung-open taxi door a solid meter from the sidewalk, I stopped to look the perpetrator in the eye. I developed this policy a long time ago, of wanting to personalize the cyclist, give the door-flinger a little...
by Eileen | Sep 3, 2018 | Uncategorized
Something really big has happened. After fourteen years in Chile, something enormous has taken place. I have not purchased a home, gotten married, had or adopted children. I have not applied for my Chilean passport, adopted (or had) a cat, nor have I decided to leave,...
by Eileen | Mar 25, 2018 | Uncategorized
I’ve had a weird couple of weeks, way more out than in, in the sense of being out of Santiago. First I cycled around Lago Llanquihue, which was spectacular in every way, except for the part where I took a spill that bruised a bone which left me very limpy, but...
