The country road we took yesterday through the towns of Abrante, El Vinculo, and Champa on our way to the Laguna Aculeo was a journey through Chilean rural culture:  white flags stuck on farmhouse fences announcing homemade bread; small almacenes advertising Coca Cola, local cheese and Omo detergent; hand painted signs at roadside fruit stands offering watermelons, tomatoes and mushrooms. On our way home, we stopped and bought a fragrant honeydew melon, a kilo of plump dark cherries and a jar of honey. What satisfaction to return to the city with fresh country products. We sat outside in the cool night air – the daytime temperature was in the 90’s – and ate crackers and cheese and our own apricots.

We have apricots up to our eyebrows, yet there is a certain pleasure harvesting our own fruit in this small city garden, especially biting into one just plucked from the tree. As nature writer John Elder claimed, it’s a seasonal activity like this that contributes to a sense of place. 

Late in the evening, we were entertained by Penny the puma. Our son tucked into his suitcase a National Geographic documentary DVD, featuring the pumas or mountain lions in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park. He’d forged a strong bond with the Park while living and working there for two years, which motivated Mr. S. and I to travel to the bottom of the world several times to experience that mystical landscape. Penny was such a regal, and, eventually, trusting feline, allowing the photographer to film her expressive face, powerful body and hunting prowess. I wanted to reach out to pet her. A perfect fit of animal and habitat, each enhancing the other's beauty and wild nature.

Mr. S. and I were married 41 years ago today. We both forgot until later in the day when a friend called to wish us “Happy Anniversary”. Ooops. 

 A visit to the Cementerio General of Santiago produced a mix of emotions. Surprise at the toll gate at the entrance. One thousand four hundred pesos (3 dollars) to drive in. Curiosity at the names on the tombs, old-fashioned first names like Zunilda and Berta and last names of mixed nationalities. Disgust at the stand offering candy bars and bags of potato chips for sale. Sadness at the concrete galleries of stacked columbarium niches, paint peeling, looking like public housing, poverty even after death. A chuckle at the niches sporting tiny, faded awnings.

We picked up the urn containing my mother-in-law’s ashes and carried it to the grave, where her husband and his five sisters are buried. Two workers pried open the heavy lid to the flat tomb. We all peered down into a deep dark concrete bunker. One worker climbed down iron steps encrusted in a wall and received the urn lowered down to him. Another worker then carried down a plastic bottle of water and a container of cement to seal the space containing the urn. A stray cocker spaniel lay on the grass watching the process. Mr. S. and his brother recalled those buried there and decided to have their names engraved on the lid. Mr. S announced he did not want to be cremated. I felt uncertain at the moment. I’d always thought I’d like my ashes to be dispersed partly in Marin County soil and the rest here in Chile. “Where?” my son asked. I’d often imagined a lush southern rainforest, but then I turned to Mr. S. and said, “Next to you, and I want my tombstone to read “Native of California”."

Leaving the cemetery, Mr. S. pointed out a grungy bar on the corner called “Quita Penas”, roughly translated: “Drown Your Sorrows”.

Our 103 year-old family matriarch chose the early hours of Christmas Eve to take leave of us to her place of peace. We felt she possibly planned her timing in order to have all the family – three generations of cousins, nieces, nephews, aunts and uncles - together at Christmas. Her absence feels like a gaping hole. She was just always there. The atmosphere at the funeral service was of mixed emotions with several of her 22 great-grandchildren running and jumping around the coffin. One little girl was intrigued by a tassel of silk protruding from the top of the coffin, tugging at it in spite of her mother’s admonishing.

This morning a turtle dove wandered through our open kitchen door. When I entered, it flew up, startled, and flapped wildly against the window. I moved slowly towards it, cupped it in my hands and released it into the garden. I said to Mr. S., “Maybe that was a visit from your mother.” “Yeah,” he said, “she always liked our garden.”

My New Yorker son is here and together we went to the recycling center to unload the paper, plastic and bottle accumulation from the family dinner and gift exchange on Christmas Eve. Unbelievable – the tons of post-Christmas trash at the recycling center. There it was, live and direct, the results of our society’s massive consumer frenzy. A thought-provoking perspective on Christmas.

This is the giving season, and our apricot tree is doing its part. The austral thrushes get first pick, having the advantage of flight. After a nibble or two, the fruit plops to the ground. First to reach the damaged fruit are the sow bugs. Then our tortoise Speedy cruises by and takes bites here and there in his rounds about the garden. Yet there are still plenty sweet, juicy apricots left for us. A true summer pleasure is to sink my teeth into a recently plucked damasco. Our tree is truly a Giving Tree.

Hugs are on my mind. Yesterday the grand-girls came to help decorate our Christmas tree. Artificial. I succumbed several years ago as every live, potted tree I bought over the years turned sad and spindly, and I couldn't keep it in a pot forever, so I’d end up guiltily euthanizing it. Tree lots are non-existent in Chile.

Back to grandchildren and hugs. We also made Christmas cookies and then they invented making lemonade on the back patio ("they" meaning the girls, not the cookies). Results: Lots of fun and laughs and VERY sticky surfaces inside and out.  But, well…..hugs. Children are made for squeezing!  I can’t resist those plump arms and legs, though they clearly let me know when enough is enough.

I spent this morning rubbing my mother-in-law’s hand (the one not connected to intravenous tubes), interspersed with hugs and forehead stroking. She is 103 years-old and stopped eating and drinking several days ago. I've never found it easy to hug or caress an older body. With my aging mother, I made a great step forward when I rubbed her swollen legs with body lotion. Now I lament that I didn't give her more hugs.

Maybe I’m trying to redeem myself with my mother-in-law. According to her children, she was not a physically affectionate mother, but in the past year she began seeking more contact. She’d rub my hands and lift her face for a kiss. Now I sit next to her deathbed and give her what I know she wants, though she can no longer express it. It has become easier for me. I hold her thin hand in gratitude for reminding me that we all need hugs and for showing me how to leave the living world with dignity.

The plop of apricots hitting the ground outside our bedroom French door was the first sound to interrupt my sleep. A pleasant way to start my day. But then…. a tremendous racket from our backyard birds, the austral thrushes (Chile’s robins) and the White- crested Elaenia. The clamor could mean only one thing – CAT. The squawking  grew louder. We've had several baby birds and parents feeding in our garden lately. I leaped out of  bed. Outside, I scanned for signs of a feline prowler, but found only a large pile of feathers on the grass. I felt sad. We feel responsible for the welfare of our garden frequenters. I know the cat was just doing what cats are wired to do. I wondered what robins feel when a baby or mate is lost.

    Robin racket was immediately followed by the loud voices of the two men who practice boxing at 7 a.m. in a patio just over the wall from our garden and open bedroom French doors. They seem to be unaware they have neighbors.

    This afternoon as I watered a few plants in the garden, I startled a robin….an injured robin. It was an adult and, in spite of missing a large portion of feathers on one wing, it was able to fly to another corner. Perhaps it will recover. Amazing it was able to fight off a cat larger than it.

A quick change of subject…I want to talk about tattoos. Two repairmen came yesterday, both heavily tattooed. I was particularly curious about a large face tattooed onto the forearm of the most muscular fellow. “That’s a cacique,” he said. “A Mapuche Indian chief.

“Which one?

“Colo-Colo.” On the backside of his arm he showed me a tall araucaria tree, native to the Mapuche territory. On his other arm he had a bar of music. “I’m a musician,” he said. “I sing and play the guitar and the bass.”

If I were to go for a tattoo, what would I choose? Maybe a sequoia. Or a woodpecker. Or a tarweed flower?

Election Day in Chile. Presidential run-offs. Hubby and neighbor lady report light turn-out.  I think many figure: why vote when the outcome is completely predictable?

    Yesterday two belated birthday cards arrived for me. Postmarked in the States on November 25^th.  Twenty days to be delivered to my door. Perhaps they took a little side trip along the way. My son enlightened me. “No one uses postal services anymore. It’s either email or courier.” True, I seldom send cards or letters anymore. My yearly Christmas letter travels by email. No more writing out each card by hand, licking envelopes and stamps as the perspiration drips down my brow. The exceptions are cards sent to a few computer-less elderly ladies and goofy birthday cards to a few close friends. Give me humor any day rather than the flowery, sentimental Hallmark verses.

    I do enjoy receiving cards though, delivered by Cristián my mailman, wearing his red cap. He stops his bike and rings the doorbell. We exchange a few friendly words and comment on the heat as he hands me a clutch of white envelopes and maybe a magazine. Within a span of two weeks he delivered the August, September, October and November issues of the one U.S. magazine I subscribe to. I said, “They must have all come in the same ship.” I was being kind. No doubt those magazines languished in some deep, dusty bin in a dark Chilean postal warehouse. The white envelopes are growing fewer and fewer as I’m given the option to receive the information by email and ‘save the trees’.

    I read that the biggest tree-consumer is toilet paper. I have yet to locate toilet paper manufactured with recycled paper. I suspect that the one brand of grey-green toilet paper, known as “Confort” (someone’s idea of a joke?), available in Chile in the early ‘70’s, may have been recycled. It was a tad softer than newspaper.