Yesterday we spent lots of hours on the road for a quick day trip to the nearest city, which is three hours away. Doctor appointments, a whole lotta shopping and eating tedious amounts of snack food as we made our way from stop to stop in icy-windy gusts of snow. We bought the bed base we needed, odds, ends and some hard to find groceries, like rucula, asparagus, broccoli, cream cheese and get this: frozen blueberries! I couldn't believe my luck! I even drank blueberry juice at lunch. I asked what kind of jugos naturales there were, and he said arandanos. And I said, wait wait wait, are you serious??? I was so excited, he even gave us the phone number of his clandestine blueberry supplier. Sshhhh. But then a look in the frozen fruit section made it all the easier. So, blueberry cheesecake, get ready for me!
Last night I was talking to my girlfriend in the backseat while I took a driving break. For some reason, there is a part of the road between Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales, where people start talking about UFOs. I've had similar conversations on this stretch of road a few times now, with different people. OVNIs (as those unidentified objects are acroynymed here) are spied frequently in this corner of Patagonia. UFO stories led to ghost stories led to talk about chakras, energy fields and intuition.
It was one of those rather fluid and beautiful conversations that every so often we're lucky enough to splash into. And it led to this word: desencajarse. Meaning something akin to: unplugging oneself. Caja = box. Let's, for a moment, think of our bodies as boxes. If we can disbox ourselves from... well, ourselves, I think we can identify this event as something akin to freedom. I found myself loving anew the flexibility of the Spanish language. You can will just about any noun into a verb.
Which leads me to what I was trying to do today: let myself flow into the universe a little. At some point during my travels, I landed into a state of calm and clarity, which seemed to hold me like water for a good long time. But at some point, my water bubble burst. And calm--I'm sad to admit--has not been my forte lately. I wholly believe that we create the world around us not only by our thoughts, but also by the energy that the whorl of our thoughts creates. However, knowing this doesn't just automatically cleanse the thoughtstream. My stream's been muddy lately, and the mud's been suctioning my boots; I've been getting a little stuck.
So now to get unstuck. I actively practiced unsticking myself today while trying to get the last of my Chilean residency figured out. I've been waiting on this process, in some form or another, since November of last year. Today I was just about to get my picture taken, and the drama started. Basically my expired Chilean ID uses my maiden name, my passport contains my current name and the document that legalized our marriage in Chile also used my maiden name. Which would seem obvious (since my name changed after marriage), but c'est la vie.
I was lectured about how women don't change their names here at least three times today. This has been such a struggle that before I even started this round paperwork, I asked several times if there was going to be a problem with the name discrepancy. Each time the person in the foreign office pacified me. But today I was told I would have to restart the process, which would include traveling to Santiago to re-legalize our marriage here. (This took nearly a week of running around to embassies and foreign affairs offices the first time we did it.) Then I would have to restart all the paperwork, and wait another four months or so. I wept in the lawyer's office. Not full-on bawling, but a full-on well in the eyes and a slightly pitched voice.
But during all this I tried to remember to breathe and not get angry. I started working on Plan B in my head while the lawyer waved my papers in my face telling me I needed to get my maiden name back. What happened next is the most remarkable part. For nearly two hours this morning, two ladies from two different departments actually called Santiago to discuss my case. This level of work and dedication is pretty much unheard of here. And after it all, they found out that there is a way for someone like me to change her name in the Chilean system. One piece of paper, where I authorize my name change. Then we attach some document photocopies showing the validity of the change. So simple. I started tearing up again when they told me the problem would be resolved.
{black-necked swan lovers by serkan}
So, why is this ID so important? It is my ticket to be able to file Serkan's USA immigration papers from Chile. That way we can stay together while we're waiting for the process, and instead of waiting 6-12 months (or more) submitting everything from the U.S., the wait time is supposed to be only 2-4 months. Soon, friends, soon.
I am so thankful that everything turned out today. It could have been such a different ending if the stars weren't aligned as they are or if I truly blew my cool, even on the inside. (Tears aside, of course.)
