“From the moment we left Chile and began to travel from country to country, I became the new girl in the neighborhood, the foreigner at school, the strange one who dressed differently and didn’t even know how to talk like everyone else. I couldn’t picture the time I would return to familiar territory in Santiago, but when finally that happened, several years later, I didn’t fit in there either […]. Things that happened in the past have fuzzy outlines, they’re pale; it’s as if my life has been nothing but a series of illusions, of fleeting images, of events I don’t understand or only half understand. […] Nor can I picture Chile as a geographic locale with certain precise characteristics: a real and definable place. I see it the way a country road might look as night falls, when the long shadows of the poplars trick our vision and the landscape is no more substantial than a dream” (Allende 78-79)."According to my grandfather, cancer is caused by easy living, whereas discomfort is good for the health. He recommended cold showers, food difficult to chew, lumpy mattresses, third-class seats on trains, and clunky shoes. His theory of healthful discomfort was reinforced by several English schools for young girls in which it was my destiny to spend the greater part of my childhood. If you survive this kind of education, you are forever after grateful for the most trivial pleasures. I'm a person who murmurs a silent prayer of thanks when warm water comes out of the tap. [...] It doesn't take much to make me happy; you know now that ordinary warm water in the faucet will do the trick" (Allende, 96).
Quote from "My Invented Country" by Isabel Allende. Click on the picture of the book to go to Allende's page.
Source:
Allende, Isabel. My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile. Trans. Margaret Sayers Peden. New York: Harper Collins, 2003.