Displaced creative Sally Rose: Is she coming…or going?!
Once upon a time, Sally Rose was happily settled in Santiago, Chile (as described in her wonderlanded interview for this site). But then five years passed, and she got itchy feet. She took a half-year sojourn in Europe trying to figure it out. So, is Santiago still “home”? Let’s see how Sally feels upon her return to Chile. —ML Awanohara
From my spacious flat in Edinburgh to my 16th-floor dollhouse of an apartment in Santiago, I have culture shock all over again.
I arrived back in Santiago last Friday. It’s now Monday and my suitcase is still not unpacked. After living out of it for six months, I haven’t had the energy to face it yet, so I dug out my toiletries and some underwear and have let the rest slide.
The laundry pile is reaching critical mass now. A visit to the 19th-floor laundry room will be in my near future because, unlike in Edinburgh, my little aerie in Santiago doesn’t have a washing machine. My view of the Andes mountains mostly makes up for that.
APARTMENTS WITH A VIEW—of the Water of Leith (Edinburgh, top) and the Andes (Santiago). Photos supplied.
My swansong, so to speak
From my apartment in Edinburgh, my view was the Water of Leith. I used to watch the birds swimming there. In particular, there was a pair of swans that I saw every day last fall.
When I returned from my holiday trip to Barcelona, one of them was gone. Since swans mate for life, I wondered what had happened to the second one.
Did it die? Did it fly away for the winter? Would it fly alone, leaving its mate behind?
I don’t know anything about bird behaviors, so all I could do was watch as he swam alone, or with the ducks, all winter.
I became nostalgic, seeing that lone swan and thinking of his mate that might have been thousands of miles away. It reminded me of far-flung friends in various places that I’ve lived.
The 1970s Seals and Crofts’ song “We May Never Pass This Way (Again)” popped into my head and stayed there. As it repeated itself, like the proverbial broken record, I kept reflecting that a hazard of being a “proper traveler” is that I will always be leaving someone behind.
THE LONE SWAN: A metaphor for the peripatetic expat? Photos supplied.
Am I happy to be back? Yes and no.
Am I happy to be back in Chile? I’m happy to connect with my Chilean friends again, but sad to have left the friends I’d made in Scotland.
I will miss my writing groups. I will miss the dreich weather, the gloom that is actually conducive to my creativity. I will miss my guilty pleasures—salt-and-vinegar potato chips and sticky sweet French cakes.
Of course, in Chile I have other guilty pleasures—cheap, delicious wines and tart, ice cold Pisco Sours, among others; but it’s going to take a bit of adjustment to jump back into Living in Spanish.
For example, everything here gets dialed forward by an hour or more. Dinner will be at 8:00 or 9:00, instead of at 6:00 or 7:00.
No more visits to the pub on Sunday evenings to hear the Jammy Devils at 7 o’clock. Here, in Chile, the music starts by 10:00 or 10:30. Maybe. In Scotland, I was home by 10:00, after the Jammies had finished their second set.
![A STUDY IN CONTRASTS: Yet each city has its guilty pleasures... Photos supplied except bottom left: Santiago-196[https://www.flickr.com/photos/33200530@N04/], by CucombreLibre via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/]](https://thedisplacednation.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/edinburgh-vs-santiago.jpg?w=630)
A STUDY IN CONTRASTS: Yet each city has its guilty pleasures… Photos supplied except bottom left: Santiago-196, by CucombreLibre via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
Tip of the cultural iceberg
Life here starts and ends later. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Living in Spanish not only means living in a country where Spanish is spoken, it means living with different cultural norms.
The Scottish culture is far more similar to my US background than is the Chilean culture. In a given situation, I can tell you what a Chilean might do, but even after five years of living here, I still have no idea why they’d do it.
THE CULTURAL ICEBERG: Hidden depths of misunderstanding are more rife in Chile than in Scotland. Photos from Pixabay or supplied.
It doesn’t all have to make sense, though, does it? That’s part of the adventure. Time for me to join Answer Seekers Anonymous, giving up on the “why’s,” and working on accepting that it is what it is. Acceptance is not my strong suit, but travel is a persistent teacher.
She’s also an excellent matchmaker. I’m talking about making new friends wherever I go. During my UK odyssey, I made many new friends and I was lucky enough to meet several author friends in person whom I had previously only met “virtually” in Internet writing groups.
I consider having international friendships a confirmation of being a “global nomad.” I didn’t don that mantle lightly, nor willingly, but I’m wearing it more and more comfortably these days.
Yesterday, I met up with my American friend, Cheryl, whom I’d met here in Santiago, when she and her husband lived here. They moved back to the US two years ago, but had returned for a brief visit.
Though great to see her, it felt odd to be meeting a friend from the US, back in Chile, when I’d just returned from Scotland.
Global nomad reunions
Maybe I’d better get used to that “down the rabbit hole” feeling because, in Edinburgh, I had a visit from Anna, a friend from the US, who was my neighbor in Chile. She happened to be bouncing around the UK at the same time that I was.
Then, my BFF from Brooklyn, whom I met at work when I lived in New York, joined me in Barcelona for her vacation.
The reunions didn’t end there. In Ireland, I visited with John, an Irish friend, whom I’d met when he vacationed in Chile two years ago.
Last but not least, in London, I met up with Bob, whom I met in Chile last year. He’s from the UK and lives in New York.
SMALL WORLD: Friends made in one place pop up in another… Photos supplied, except for bottom right: It’s a Small World, by HarshLight via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
The Chileans have a saying, “El mundo es un pañuelo.” Literally translated, it means, “The world is a handkerchief.”
Disney was right. It’s a small world after all.
Signed~
Perpetually Perplexed
* * *
Thank you, Sally, for sharing those reflections. Readers, will Sally settle back down in Santiago? How long will she stay? Like me, I’m sure you look forward to the next installment! —ML Awanohara
Born and raised in the piney woods of East Texas, Sally Rose has lived in the Cajun Country of Louisiana, the plains of Oklahoma, the “enchanted” land of New Mexico, and the Big Apple, New York City. Then she fell in love with Santiago de Chile and has been “telling tall tales” from that long, skinny country since 2009, and living in that city for the past five years. But where will her next act take her? The author of a memoir and a children’s book, Sally has an author site where she keeps a blog, and is active on Facebook and Twitter.
STAY TUNED for next week’s fab posts!
If you enjoyed this post, we invite you to register for The Displaced Dispatch, a round up of weekly posts from The Displaced Nation, and SO much more. Register for The Displaced Dispatch by clicking here!
Related posts:
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
The Displaced Nation 
I’ve wanted to go to Edinburgh because when we lived in Dunedin, New Zealand the town was modeled after Edinburgh, with a statue of Robby Burns at the Octagon, a Prince Street etc. I worked as a hydrologist and was familiar with a stream at the edge of town known as the “Waters of the Leith.” Now I know why it was called that – after all these many years!
A Small World: once when visiting Guatemala I walked by a man who looked so familiar I craned my neck around as we passed, only to see he was doing the same thing. He looked like a little boy I went to school with in Colombia 15-20 years earlier. “Are you Juan __?”
In fact he WAS that little boy – his face on a man’s body. “Are you Cinda?!” … the briefest of reunions and then we lost touch again, which is too bad because most of the classmates have since been found on the internet and we have had for reunions. Maybe one of us will run into him again somewhere in the world.
How interesting about the Water of Leith and how great that you ran into your old classmate. You may indeed find him again. I’m convinced that the “world is a handkerchief.” Thanks for your comments.