One year ago I began the day with a percolator full of coffee—a real rarity in Chile—and a cramped 20-minute microbus ride to Valparaiso, across the harbor from Vina del Mar.
My aquamarine Converse tread down the stairs and out the front gate of my apartment complex, down Calle 8 Norte and a couple blocks south on Libertad, paused at the bus stop and vaulted me up the few steep stairs onto the micro.
Here they paused as I handed the driver 250 pesos in return for a stamp-sized orange-and-white slip of paper which proclaimed Puerto, port. My shoes tapped the ground on beat with the hum of the street in friction with the tires of the micro as my eyes flickered between passengers and the window to my right.
These eyes only wished to see the water’s reflection of the cloud-covered sky over the concrete of the highway. My feet got to tapping harder and faster as they anticipated touching the sidewalk under the overpass on Errazuriz and dodging piles of dog shit in the street.
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Walking down Second Avenue North of Birmingham, Alabama, my sandals stall and fumble as my brain fools me into thinking that a crumpled-up leaf holds the same properties as a steaming pile of poop. But alas, poop cannot blow away with the wind.
