Fear of Missing...Home?

Some emotions can be scary, but there is beauty in opening one's heart.

There are a two very scary compartments in my mind that I keep securely shut, and How much I miss Chile is one of them. That door, I’ve told myself, is best to keep shut at any cost. And yes, the cost has been huge.

My fellow immigrants are familiar with this feeling—the unbearable weight of missing of our original home. For those of us without a local diaspora community to reach out to for refueling on our dose of country nostalgia, the feeling can be terrifying and we can spend a ton of energy keeping any of those pesky emotions at bay.

I am the worst at this.

There were good reasons to shut that door back in 2005. I needed to find my way in a new country without friends or family—that’s a ton of work, and I didn’t have the capacity to exert my heart in that way. As I was navigating all the emotions of missing Chile, the story of Lot’s wife in the Bible haunted me.

The short version: Lot and his wife were escaping Sodoma and Gomorrah, and they weren’t supposed to look back, or else they’d turn to salt. Well, she looked back.

The moral of the story? Don’t look back, Coté, or you’ll turn into salt!

But of course this didn’t work so well for me and mostly my kids. They have been missing out on a lot of what it means to be Chilean.

So we did a few things:

1. We booked flights to Chile in March!! We are headed to Patagonia. And as a result we’ve been listening to a ton of audiobooks about Chile. Which led to the following:

2. My little Benja, age 5, and I created a mini book for his Pre-K class about Chile. We read it Friday to his whole Pre-K Class.

This is the very first draft that we whipped up in a few hours, but I thought you’d enjoy it, so here it is! Completely un-rendered, for you!

(Benja thought it appropriate that his friend, Willa, would appear at the top of Volcán Villarrica, which, indeed, one can descend sledding on one’s butt).

Yes! The penguins up north are Humboldt and the ones in Antartica are Magallánicos. Also, I should mention whales do swallow kayakers and spit them back out—true story.

The observatory in Cerro Tololo is rad, and you can study black holes!

It was so sweet to show Benja and I’s collaboration at school. I hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time!