One of the first things I remember is sitting in my play pen and seeing rays of sun coming through the tall windows toward me. I was less than a year old but this was engraved on my mind. I could see the golden grains of fine dust on those rays. I knew inside me that was a sign. I sensed a power able to create everything that surrounded me. A power that specially sent that golden light to overcome the dark apartment corridor.

It was an internal knowledge of that powerful presence that little by little my social training, listening and believing traditional world lies, helped to erase.

I also remember playing with the golden hair of my young cousin that used to come babysit and fell asleep inside my play pan.

Then we moved to a house in Nuñoa. But my father bought an apartment in downtown for his clinic. He installed his beautiful ornate dentist chair, light and instruments in a room separated from the entrance by a curved wall made up with cubes of glass. That was considered very modern in the 40’s. I was two years old.

I remember the house especially because it had a big patio and I had a dog. It was a fox terrier named in honor of a Mexican actor, and he was the first love of my life.

However, the first drawing I did was of a cat. I used a pencil on an add page of the Sunday edition of El Mercurio, the world’s oldest Spanish language newspaper still in circulation. I drew a triangle with a tail, two pointed ears on the upper part of the triangle and one eye because the cat was sitting on his side.

One day some street dogs came around and, I do not know how, through the fence, my dog acquired rabies. My dog was sent to the vet to be killed and I was sent to the Hospital to have 12 incredibly painful injections in my belly. I cried and cried for days because I could not live without having an animal to love. I still need an animal in my life.

I begged for another dog but my parents were afraid that another tragedy could happen. Well, it did. Without the dog, the house became vulnerable. One night when we had been out to visit friends, we came back home to find out we had been robbed. My father was furious. He decided to move back downtown. He said that my mother and I should be near him. I was very sad because I liked the house. Maybe my sadness was the cause of my first accident while I was riding my tricycle. I ended up with a big bruise and scratched skin in my forehead. More reason for my father to move. I painted my boo-boo on the forehead of the face of Pinocchio, my favorite Disney book. My mother told me that I should never draw or damage a book in any way and since then, during my 24 years of study I never underlined in a book. Instead I took notes of what I thought was important in my own words. This really helped me a lot when I had to write assignment papers.

During the time of the tricycle accident, I also came down with diphtheria. For a long time I was in bed dreaming strange scary dreams with dark beings pursuing me, but I always was saved by a beautiful light that chased the bad guys away. I was sure it was my guardian angel.

While I was sick, I was very eager to learn to read, but the nuns had told my parents not to teach me until I went to their kindergarten, at six years old. I really could not wait so my mother patiently read to me many books.

I learned all the classic tales from Perrault, the Grimm brothers, and Chilean folklore stories. I mean tales like Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Pedro Urdimales, for example. During my many illnesses as a child, I also learned to love classic music. Every day after lunch, except on Sundays, my mother would turn the radio on to hear all the great concerts and also opera. It was a joy to hear that music.