Often, you notice subtle, surprising things about a place only after you leave it. Sidewalks, for example, were wide and ample in Santiago (and rich in hearts). I’d often get stuck behind four men walking side by side at a leisurely pace, so Ruby and I would duck around on the tree-lined grass expanse that divided the sidewalk from the street. The sidewalks were wider still—a few meters across—over on the boulevards. Here, in the ‘burbs, the sidewalks are narrow—meant for a solitary traveler. Sometimes, the sidewalks just stop while the road curves on ahead.

 

 

It’s natural, though not necessarily helpful, to compare. I did it all the time upon landing in Chile. Where could I find the food that would remind me of home? Why did I have to go all the way to the post office simply to mail a letter? How often could I get to the grand Pacific? Here, we still haven’t reached the Atlantic. (We attempted a trip to New York City, as Ryan has never been and we both have family and friends there, only to cancel. By “attempted,” I should clarify that we thought it through, including the logistics of keeping a teething baby happy for several hours in a car without traffic. We stayed home.)

There, most of my friends lived within walking distance. Yes, it was a bit of an expat bubble. But was it ever easy to meet people that way, to grab those walks while talking side by side. Here, we aren’t a community of strangers in a strange land as we were there, eager to reach out and respond. Sure, it takes time to find your tribe, as just about anything does.

There, Ryan and I had nothing but time. We were waiting for a baby who would breathe. I was writing through the days. We could take ten-hour drives out of town if we wanted to. Here, the baby breathes. And laughs. And time runs fast through her tiny hands. My heart nearly explodes when she takes those hands and places them around my neck and squeezes. I write in bursts while she sleeps. She loves it when Ryan plays music for her. It’s the life we wanted superimposed over the one we survived.

It’s also patience in reverse. There, I wrote madly to busy my hands and to lay the story—still—on the page, which calmed the vibration in my mind. Here, I’m editing those pages. I have a road map and know what needs to be done to help others relate to and visualize the story. But the discipline is not in maintaining the steady clip of logged hours, but rather in being satisfied with small bites, chalk-outlined squares that will eventually transport the story across. It’s still about pacing.

This new pace, it turns out, is compatible with editing this kind of journey. Because I can take seeing all that we survived on the page, but I have to take it in small doses. Where I devoured others’ stories like ours, where I transcribed my own as a form of forward motion, it’s sometimes overwhelming to go back and relive it in detail, line by line. It’s surreal to pick up the bread crumbs after laying them down.