“For two years I’ve liked to think that my Bolivian ID is more than just a conversation starter, that it grounds my daily life in my relationship to a country I for a time called my home.”
“Think surfing. What comes to mind? White beaches and tropical blue waters, perhaps. Laidback beach bums with long, sun-bleached hair. California, Hawaii, the South Pacific. You probably do not think of snowbanks and dark, churning, sub-forty-degree water. Pale, shivering guys in head-to-toe neoprene and with accents harsh as the weather. You almost certainly do not think of New Jersey.”
“You are buzzed in after a moment, as if you are entering a doctor’s office, as if you are a patient, as if the Freud, whose eyes stare out from the tiers of brochures in the museum’s front room, will tell you in due time what your dreams mean.”
“My eyes darted between the two security cameras on the roof. Despite feeling cynical lately about the effectiveness of government, I had a feeling that these cameras were both working and monitored around the clock. I felt so patriotic.”
