Conversations around the dinner table.
Postcards from Chile
While Spring littered meadows with wildflowers, I found myself with little to write about as we packed up our possessions in the little apartment we rented for 3 months and prepared for our trip to my husband’s motherland, Chile.
I feel I have such a love/hate relationship for packing. There is the organised homebody in me that sighs as the old moving boxes are brought out of storage - flat, worn and becoming soft in places, as if to age and wrinkle. They lean against a piece of furniture, staring at me as I come and go, as if to say, ‘are we really doing this again? I’m not sure I can hold on any longer!’ I crave some consistency in a commute to work, in a local health food store and yoga studio. Ah, to stroke the same rough edges of a brightly coloured key on my rose quartz ring, a comfort in knowing it unlocks the door to home. Andres and I have not lived in the same place for more than 18 months since we have been together. Although tiring and chaotic, there is an excitement. The entwined free-spirited nature in us both raised their eyebrow at the next suburb possibility. We have collectively lived in 8 suburbs in our 6 years in Melbourne, each time the place seemingly calling to us rather than us to it. I fully believe a house will choose its owner at the right time, and although we do not at this point have a rental to come home to, I am sure that while housesitting for friends over the Christmas period, we will be surprised for what finds us.
I took the first four days to settle into my in-laws’ home in Chile, on a magnificent part of the coast called, Concon. The neighbourhood still has its original dirt roads made of golden sand. The community petitioned to keep them as the rest of the city’s roads were urbanized. When I asked why, my mother-in-law said ‘to maintain the peaceful neighbourhood. You cannot drive fast here, it is safer for children to play’. How we have lost the essence of slow in favour of convenience.
There are mountains that hug each side of Concon, like a mother’s embrace of her young. There is a holding which is reflected in the lack of rain here, and the sky appears to sit lower as the clouds cling to the mountains’ peaks like opened curtains welcoming in the sunlight. The town has been built on sand dunes, which gives it a retro dusty feel. Like a younger, wilder, scruffier cousin of Palm Springs.
We have, since arriving in Chile, taken trips to both the North, at the edge of the dessert; and to the South, with its splatterings of green and snowy volcanic peaks that remind me of a chocolate flour cake sprinkled in icing. Now, in the South we stay in a family home along the Liucura River, which is blue as ice and I half expect a polar bear to greet me on the other side.
The white noise of the river lulls me to sleep at night. In the mornings, sun flickers across my closed eyelids, dancing through the shadows like a waltz through the slow-moving branches outside our window. We spend time plunging into the icy cold waters then sunning ourselves on rocks. I feel like Sarah in the opening scene of ‘A Little Princess’, childlike, testing myself in the river’s current. Watching the King Fisher birds posing on branches and catching a duo of patito cortacorriente (moving ducks) glide above the river together and splash into the water, playing. Apparently, these ducks are difficult to see as they move so quickly. I thought of this magical moment as good luck.
All of this is extraordinary. But my favourite part of each day, has not been the sight seeing. It is the evenings. We talk over home cooked meals and bottles of red wine. Each night I try to pose a question to sink deeper into my in laws’ stories. This time is so precious, as we have chosen to live in a country so far from both of our families, I find myself craving to remember. The way my in laws move their tongues between Spanish and English. The expressions on their faces. How they enjoy life effortlessly. The agility in their bodies as we go on long walks and I hope I can be as fit as they are in their 60s. How they communicate with each other, with so much respect and humour.
Last night at dinner I asked a question;
‘Imagine if an old wizard came through the door right now, with an activated marble, which swirled in lilacs and pearls. He held out the marble to you and said, If you take this marble now, you will be thrown back in time to when you were 17 years old and you will have the opportunity to live your life again. You will remember this moment. You will know you were here now with your son and daughter in law. You know your spouse was this person. You know your other son is in Australia too. And you know that you held a long career in medicine. However, you won’t know how you got there as you won’t remember any of the choices you made in life, big or small. Would you take the marble?’
Would you take the marble? Would you risk living a completely different life to live life again, with the chance you may not ever meet the people that are so dear to you now? Would you take the chance to undo any big regrets you have in your journey? Or do you believe there are no regrets, only good and bad choices?
The resounding answer to this question last night, was ‘no’. Given the opportunity of longevity, no one wanted it. No one wanted to risk the life they had built in favour of another. Not for more success, riches, career changes or further travel. No for do overs or re compassing some of the twists and turns life had laid out. At 60, when truly in the latter half of life, living Golden Years, regrets appeared to be few, and more time to live did not trump the love they had for each other and the boys they had created through sheer love, faith and perseverance (Both IVF. My mother-in-law then sent on strict bed rest for 6 months of her pregnancy).
It made me wonder about my own Midnight Library, a place seldom visited in my mind after I was invited into the place of what if’s by Matt Haig’s wonderful book of our array of decisions’ altering consequences. There is a version of me who lives in London in her swanky apartment, drinking only the most ripely aged red wines and meeting editorial deadlines. There is another who makes homemade almond milk and kombucha in her cottage adorned in vines of roses. There’s a tall blonde husband who carries a briefcase and sports bag and two little girls brushing against my knees. Another took the nursing job in Sydney and lives in a rustic, boutique apartment in Coogee with her hipster girlfriends and tans all weekend. Another in yogi pants scooting around Bali running yoga retreats; and another is in a disappointing relationship, living in a high mortgaged terraced house with no access to the morning light, sighing as her toes touch the ground each morning.
I woke the next morning and looked out at those snowy capped volcanoes. There are many wrongs I wish I could right. Things I wish I hadn’t said and things I wish I could have done. But here in the south of Chile, I would not risk a turn of the clock’s hands for anything.
Another question I asked my in-laws over dinner was the secret to their long, happy marriage. Cliche, I know. But marriage looks so easy on them, and they have been together 43 years and married for most of those years. Their answers were quite different, and may sound controversial in an ever-growing feminist world.
My mother in law spoke of her ambivalence with the little decisions. What to eat for dinner, where to go on holidays. She leaves these decisions to her husband. Allowing one person to steer the ship had suited their long marriage, and had not steered them wrong. Claudia enjoys life as a home maker, taking time to care for her family, seeing friends and enjoying making ceramics and paintings. She is the most exquisitely talented artist, her work littered around the house in a way where you know a true artist of life lives there. Tommy spoke of making time for tendernes, and laughing a lot. Taking the lead, having deep conversations only rarely, not over thinking and over complicating life. Although these answers may appear there is some submission, I relate this to the concepts of the Flower-Gardener relationship philosophy. It appears my father in law, is the Flower. Spontaneous - which he has been every day of this trip. Enjoying making decisions and being reaffirmed for them. Claudia, the Gardener, easy and adaptive. Nurturing her husband to flourish in his career as an orthopaedic surgeon, caring for the home, and being a gentle voice of reason that I sometime hear as they exchange words in Spanish. Although I do not always understand the conversation, I see the context in the impression, tone and gestures, Tommy relaxing into a different direction.
It’s beautiful to watch a Flower and Gardener at work so purely without even realising they are the mirror of this theory. Andres and I have previously quickly worked out who is the Flower in our relationship (me). For example, finding and choosing our last 3 homes without Andres even seeing the place before we have signed the lease, taken the keys and hired the removalists. He has always been so happy to allow me creative flexibility, as a surge hits which I spill all over him like milk splashing on cereal and he asks, ‘how can I help you make that happen?”.
I pondered on the point of this piece of writing which I landed on as nothing other than a quick end of year update of where I am, both mentally and physically. As I sit in this reflective sensitivity while soaking in the South of Chile with family, I call in the energy of our next family home, which I think will be small, light filled, oddly quiet in a busy area and cosy. There will be an energy that invites in everything we want to conceive in 2024. Let it happen, we are surrendered to our home’s invitation.
Claudia and Andres enjoying an evening in Castro, Chile :)