What has surprised me most about moving back to the United States, and to Florida in particular, is how alive the land is. Uruguay is certainly a visual paradise, and it is certainly alive, yet it is a subtle place. The nature of Florida is exuberant and overt. It sings in ways I had forgotten.

In Uruguay, there is frugality and thrift. Partly, this is due to the personality and the economic circumstances of the people, but living at the bottom of the world is both a blessing and a burden.

Its blessing is that it stands outside the economic whirlwinds of the northern hemisphere. Its isolation allows for a more staid and tranquil state of mind. There is time to think and ponder. For that, I am truly grateful. I wrote two novels there, and the space it provided me sent my mind in directions I doubt I would have visited had I been elsewhere.

Its burden is that it is an extraordinary distance from the North. Maps don’t do it justice. For example, if one overlays Brazil over North America, Brazil stretches from Northern Canada almost to Alaska and all the way to the bottom of Mexico—an extraordinary distance. To travel to Uruguay, which is nestled between Brazil and Argentina, means flying over most of Brazil. It takes seven hours by jet to Panama City from Montevideo.

Now that I am back in the Northern Hemisphere, I feel connected. How will that affect my writing? I don’t know, but I am eager to find out.