MARINA OPPENHEIMER BOOKS AND BLOG

This year, as on the last four years, I took a trip to the Argentine Patagonia, this time to the province of Chubut. I booked a hotel in the city of Esquel with the project of visiting National Park Los Alerces, which besides being of a magnificent beauty was designated a world’s heritage site in 2017 due to being home to 2000-year-old trees. Since I am divorced and I don’t know of anybody with whom I would like to share a three weeks trip, I always travel alone; perhaps because at this age I only go to places that invite meditation and reflection, I have never felt alone in any of my expeditions. On the contrary, when people seem surprised to see me flying alone to the end of the world, I say to myself that they have probably never felt the joy of looking at a majestic mountain from the shore of a crystal-clear lake… alone. The best description for this feeling of awe is just that: the awe of being at the end of the world looking at what is greater than ourselves. However, it is also...

The other day, I heard from Rafael Santandreu one of the wisest phrases I had ever heard: "Each one of us acts from an unresolved pain." This brings to mind the saying of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung when he states that the deep problems of our life do not have to be solved but overcome through our personal growth. By not overcoming them, these problems will continue controlling our lives. I tried to apply these ideas to my personal life, and I began to realize how much truth they hold. When I use my own life story as an example, one of the situations that disturbed me the most was when someone walked away from me for no reason. On those occasions when I lost a friendship without any possible explanation, I always convinced myself that it was surely my fault. However, I now understand how much more complicated the situation was. If that friend didn't feel comfortable with me because of something I had done, she would have told me openly. By not explaining to me the reason...

Nineteen years after my 30-year marriage broke down, I still wonder why I chose a spouse with whom I have very little in common. While the marriage lasted many years, our time together was not a time of love and companionship; on the contrary, ours were times of coldness and distance. If we lasted 30 years together it was because our common concern was that our only son could grow up with the both of us. One day I read in The Family Crucible a phrase I never forgot: "We do not marry the person we love but the person we need". If this is true, the question for me is then what did I need from the man I married that made me choose him? Since my love for my chosen one lasted very little, it is obvious that these words were telling me something important. If I analyze the personality of my ex-husband, he is a man focused on his work and who always dreamed of bigger horizons. He had a lot of plans, but I guess that the idea of going alone didn't convince him. As for me, when ...