While in Santiago last weekend, I had a small window of time to do something fun. So, I walked seven minutes from where I was staying to the La Chascona. It is one of the three houses Pablo Neruda, the famous Chilean poet. He built this home in the Bellavista neighborhood of Santiago for his lover before she became his third wife. Already dramatic.

His life was so very interesting, and his writing remains so exquisite and penetrating.

I was so sleepy the morning I went, and the city of Santiago was still asleep despite the late morning timeframe. In my huge struggle to understand Chilean Spanish, I fumbled my way over there. I found the spot, completely quiet out in front. I felt I was stepping into the home of someone I knew who happenedto know I was in town. I slipped inside.

I saw his pens, poems written one bare pieces of paper, antique maps, bar for entertaining, colorful glasses in the dining room, and Nobel Prize for Literature. What a morning. Again, I had the strong sensation that someone had reached into my chest cavity and was massaging my heart with strong thumbs.

While visiting the house, I purchased his The Book of Questions. I noted a few.

¿Conversa el humo con los nubes?

Does smoke talk with the clouds?

¿Cómo se llama ese cocktail que mezcla vodka con relámpagos?

What´s the name of the cocktail that mixes vodka with lightning bolts?

¿Cómo agradecer a las nubes esa abunduncia fugitiva?

How can we thank the clouds for their fleeting abundance?

In the midst of a time in my life housing many feelings including joy, pain, and all accompanying feelings of change, it was a gift I gave myself. A quiet morning in Santiago with Neruda. It arose from my chaotic trip and there we were together.