We love being back in the US, seeing my sister, T, Isaac, and the beauty of Santa Fe. We’re so grateful to Nancy for sharing her home with us. And we met some new friends.

But I just want to think about Chile a little bit longer; here are a few random thoughts:

1. E-biking is like biking but more fun. The hills return to the earth and release their dread.

2. Some People in Patagonia:

The kindness of Angel (yes, that’s his name) the owner of the hotel in Coyhaique who knew I was a poet.

Rogelio talked about getting caught in an avalanche and realizing he can’t be so reckless anymore because he is a father of two girls, how he and Camillo (who helped me descend the steepness) are not married to the women they love, how I may have encouraged them to get married, said I’d practice the proposals, how we never did. But I left Chile and sit here imagining Camillo and Rogelio proposing, can almost see the lapis lazuli ring Rogelio said he might buy, almost hear Camillo’s girlfriend saying yes as she holds him.

Marcella, the biologist we met told me this: There have been studies to measure what happens to water if it is spoken to with kindness or meanness. Then the containers are frozen. The ones that received kind words and tone freeze into lovely formations like snowflakes. The ones that hear a mean voice freeze into a darkness.

That little boy who had to touch the carved spiral on the wall.

I remember looking into all of their eyes and that feels like touching.

3. The Birds in Patagonia

The woodpecker has more force in its beak than a human hand with a hammer. Its tongue wraps around the brain to cushion it from damage. It makes small holes in the tree for bugs and spiders and worms to congregate, sustenance to return to.

A kingfisher perched on a rock at the edge of the water in the fjord.

There were big birds with yellow necks and thin arced beaks out my window.

Every bird I saw there seems lucky to be in Chile.

As I biked along the side of the road there was a denseness of bamboo, beech, cypress, and giant ferns feathered in birdsong. And one bird laughed.

And here are a few photos of Colorado; we drove to Mesa Verde National Park today where I got to use my free senior national park pass for the first time!

The trail was beautiful albeit muddy, snowy, and a bit scary 😊.

Be safe, everyone! ❤️