“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
