A Conflict of Visions

In his book of the same name, Thomas Sowell argues that all men are guided in their thoughts and actions by an underlying set of visions which explain to them how the world, in its various facets, operates. The book, in the main, goes on to examine the inescapable conflict between what he terms the "unconstrained" and the "constrained" vision. These terms are very nearly self-explanatory. The unconstrained vision takes human nature as a promising raw material which can, by relatively straightforward measures, be molded to a variety of desirable human ends. The constrained vision sees human nature as largely fixed, morally suspect, and sometimes blindly destructive, even toward its own apparent interests. The unconstrained vision promises us emotional well-being via the guidance of qualified psychological experts who seek only to help us better ourselves, and the world around us. The constrained vision sees man as a wolf to man, and hopes that his most selfish and anarchic instincts might somehow be muted by shame, or moderated by mutal affection, or at least channelled into relatively more tolerable pursuits.

The unconstrained vision is lyrical; the constrained is tragic. The unconstrained is youthful; the constrained middle-aged. The unconstrained inspires; the constrained cautions. "'Most men look at things as they are and wonder why. I dream of things that never were and ask: Why not?'" mused Bobby Kennedy. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," Genesis replies. The first vision is linear, spring-like, we might say, "Faustian." The second is circular, autumnal, humbling.

Both the constrained and the unconstrained vision inhabit every human psyche, in varying ways at varying times. But Sowell's apparent purpose in writing his book is to caution us against the siren song of the unconstrained vision, and to remind us of the damage that its excesses so often engender. More specifically, he sees our political and economic choices as emerging from a conflict between these two visions of the human state. For those who bother to think, aging is, in some measure, a transit from one vision to the other.

This brings us to the upcoming election. We do not now have, nor have we had, so far as I can remember during my lifetime, any sustained political conflict between the constrained and the unconstrained vision. In short, what we have, and have had, is simply a rhetorical competition between two versions of the unconstrained vision. In effect, the unconstrained vision has long since won the day. Hence, my reluctance to enter into the political process (i.e. to vote).

For the entirety of my adulthood (and I'm now well into my forties) we have evaded the constraints on our income and our consumption, both as individuals and as a society, by borrowing against our own or our children's - and grand children's - future prosperity, such as they may ever enjoy. This evasion has been engaged in enthusiastically, even optimistically, but with next to no regard as to its long-term effects. There is no point here, so far as I am concerned, in apportioning blame to a particular politician, or party, or economic class of society. We've given ourselves license to do this, and we've given others license to do this in our name.

I don't know what the ultimate outcome of the current Wall Street tribulation may be, but I suspect that, in the much broader sense, the way that we have been living, and the vision which has underpinned the choices we have made, will eventually, inevitably, and not in the too far distant future, encounter a very stiff and unyielding wall. Things will then change, as things always do. The outcome will probably be sobering, and for many, tragic. And of course, it could always be even worse.

A few points to consider, none of which require an advanced understanding of economics.

1. The era of cheap oil is over. This does not mean that we, or the world, will ruin out of oil this year, or this decade. But we will be paying more for oil now and into the future than we paid up to the recent past, and that change will be permanent. The price of oil will only decline, long term, when (if) humanity hits upon something cost-effective that operates more or less as oil does. There is currently nothing on the horizon, that I know of, that fits that description.

2. Our fueling of ever-increasing consumer spending through ever-increasing debt is about to be re-examined. We rely on people elsewhere to loan us money, and those people are currently, for good reason, somewhat wary of our ability to repay. Again, this is true on both the individual and the national level. I don't pretend to have any esoteric understanding of our capital markets, but I think I am correct in assuming that when you take on debt, every year, and neglect ever to pay down the principal, and finance the interest on the accumulating debt through taking on more debt, you eventually find yourself deep in a hole you cannot crawl out of.

3. Our economic growth over the past twenty years has not been limited to, but has been characterized by, bubbles. According to economist Thomas Palley:

"The business cycles of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush share strong similarities and are different from pre-1980 cycles. The similarities are large trade deficits, manufacturing job loss, asset price inflation, rising debt-to-income ratios, and detachment of wages from productivity growth.

The new cycle rests on financial booms and cheap imports. Financial booms provide collateral that supports debt-financed spending. Borrowing is also supported by an easing of credit standards and new financial products that increase leverage and widen the range of assets that can be borrowed against."

When markets are on an upswing, those raking it in are hardcore free-marketeers. Even those who know that such markets are overvalued cannot resist the temptation to "make hay while the sun shines." When markets are collapsing, we discover that these same people are somehow integral to the salvaging of our financial system, and that the entities with which they are affiliated are "too big to fail." This may not have been true of the tech bubble, but it certainly characterized the S&L debacle of the 80s, and of course we hear the same rationalizations, or if you prefer, rationales, now.

4. Social Security. In about two years, the baby boomers will begin to reach retirement age. This will entitle them (and me, eventually) to Social Security. What's worse, it will entitle them to Medicare. This is like one of those satellite photographs of one of those many hurricanes sweeping through the Caribbean a few weeks ago. This storm will not be diverted. Obviously, accomodations to reality can - and will eventually have to - be made. These accomodations will not make the baby boomers richer. The necessary adjustments will be played out on the field of inter-generational, ethnic, and class rivalry.

5. The underclass in America is growing larger. It both reproduces more, and reproduces faster (children at 18 instead of 30, grand kids in one's 30s, not one's 60s). Women receiving public assistance have, on average, three times the number of children of women who aren't on the dole. The expansion of the underclass is also attributable to unbridled and unselective immigration, much of it illegal. People don't like to talk about this in polite society. Politicians who wish to remain in office don't talk about it at all. Hence, nothing will be done to curtail the rise in the numbers of young people who will struggle through school, vent their frustration in various socially destructive ways, drop out or graduate at best marginally educated, and then struggle to find an entre into the legitimate economy. Many of them won't even bother to try. The upper middle class will avail itself of gated communities and private schools, and continue to lie to itself for as long as it can. Those below will have to fend for themselves on the streets. For them, lies will not prove so consoling.

As the factors above coalesce, plus those I'm too lazy or ignorant to write about now, our political discourse will become ever more riven with jealousy and accusation, suspicion, envy, and fear. Our politicians will continue to promise us more and better, better and more, for they know that we are children who wish only to be comforted, which, as our circumstances decline, will mean only to be deceived. They will accommodate us, and we will accommodate them. And we will all fall down together. Want examples? Look to the campaign promises of McCain and Obama. Or just click on this article.

By the way. I am, as I've said, well into my forties, with a wife and two kids. But I've never in my life owned a house. I used to feel kind of bad, or guilty, or inadequate about this, like I'd neglected to do something that was expected of me.

I don't feel so bad about it now.

PS: If you,re pondering the merits of the Wall Street bailout, you might want to click here.

In Our Time

Go to the "Search" feature for The New York Times website. Type in "Michael Richards+racist." You will get 318 hits.

Type in "Mel Gibson+anti-semitic" and get 1,170 hits.

Dog, the Bounty Hunter, "Duane Chapman+racist" produces 54 hits.

"Don Imus+racist" generates an impressive 2,090 hits.

Curiously, try whatever semantic combinations you may, you will be unable to produce even one hit referencing "comedienne" Sandra Bernhardt's recent performance at a Washington D.C Jewish Community Center. Bernhardt's monologue was characterized by the following political analysis:

Now you got Uncle Women, like Sarah Palin, who jumps on the s--t and points her fingers at other women. Turncoat b---h! Don’t you f--kin’ reference Old Testament, bitch! You stay with your new Goyish crappy shiksa funky bulls--t! Don’t you touch my Old Testament, you b---h! Because we have left it open for interpre-ta-tion! It is no longer taken literally! You whore in your f--kin' cheap New Vision cheap-ass plastic glasses and your [sneering voice] hair up. A Tina Fey-Megan Mullally brokedown bulls--t moment.

In a nice touch, Bernhardt also warned Sarah Palin not to visit Manhattan, lest she be gang-raped by blacks. The New York Times has yet to write about this story.

Should I Stay or Should I Go

Not long ago I had asked the specialist if I could contemplate travelling. Naturally, anytime, he said, but the way he said naturally struck me as sinister. On the other hand,whatever condition we are in, we must always do what we want to do, and if we want to go on a journey, then we must do so and not worry about our condition, even if it's the worst possible condition, because if it is, we're finished anyway, whether we go on the journey or not, and it's better to die having made the journey we've been longing for than to be stifled by our longing. It was eighteen months since I'd been anywhere. The last time had been to Palma, because I always regarded it as the most perfect place. In November, when the fog so cruelly oppresses and depresses us in Austria, I had run through the streets of Palma in an open necked shirt and drunk my coffee every day in the shade of the plane trees on the famous Bourne. And in Palma I'd been able to make my definitive notes on Reger. True, I later lost them, to this day I don't know where, thus managing to destroy the fruits of two month's intellectual effort through a piece of gross carelessness. Quite unforgivable! Just to think that I might now be sitting on the terrace of the Nixe Palace, eating my olives and drinking my glass of water, not just absorbed, but utterly captivated by the sight of others on the terrace, who would be just as taken up by their fancies and fantasies as I was with mine! We often fail to realize that if we want to go on existing we need to summon up all our strength in order to wrench ourselves off the spot where we're stuck. My sister's right to keep using the word travel in my presence, wielding it over me like a whip all the time, I tell myself. She doesn't just use the word casually every moment, but with a definite aim in mind, the preservation of my very existence. Naturally the observer can see through the person he is observing more ruthlessly and realistically than the person observed, I said. There are so many wonderful towns in the world, so many landscapes and coastlines I've seen in my life, but for me none has ever been as perfect as Palma. But what if one of my dreaded attacks comes when I'm in Palma and I'm lying in bed in my hotel room with no proper medical attention and in a state of mortal fear? We have to envisage the most terrible eventualities and make the journey nonetheless, I told myself, yet at the same time I said, I can't take all my piles of notes with me; they'll hardly go in two suitcases, and to take more than two suitcases to Palma is madness. I was driven almost to distraction by the thought of having to go to the station, get on the train, go from the train to the airport, board the plane and all the rest with two or even three suitcases. But I didn't abandon the thought of Palma or the Melia--the Mediterraneo having closed for good years ago. I had taken a firm hold in the idea, and it had taken a firm hold on me. I walked about the house, to and fro, backwards and forwards, upstairs and downstairs, unable to rid myself of the thought of leaving Peiskam behind me; in fact I made not the slightest attempt to rid myself of the thought of Palma, but went on fuelling it until in the end I got so far as to take my two large suitcases out of the hall chest and place them beside it on the floor as though I really was going to leave. On the other hand, I said to myself, we mustn't give way at once to a sudden whim. Where would that land us? But the idea was there. I placed the suitcases between the chest and the door and contemplated them from a favorable angle. How long it is since I last took those cases out of the chest! I said to myself. Far too long. In fact, the cases were dusty, even though they'd been in the chest since my last trip to Palma. I got a duster and wiped them. At once I felt very sick. I hadn't even finished dusting one case when I was obliged to support myself on the chest, overcome by a sudden fit of breathlessness. And in this condition you're thinking of flying to Palma--in the midst of all the dreadful difficulties that are invariably attendant upon such a journey, a journey which would be nothing to a healthy person, but which is far too much for a sick person and could even lead to his death? After a while, however, I dusted the second case, proceeding more cautiously this time, and then I sat down in the iron chair in the hall, my favourite chair. The articles about Mendelssohn Bartholdy can go in one of the cases, I told myself, my clothes and underclothes in the other--the Mendelssohn papers in the larger one, the clothes and underclothes in the smaller one. What's the point of having such elegant luggage, I said to myself, at least sixty years old and going back to the latter years of my maternal grandmother? She had good taste, as these suitcases of hers testify. The Tuscans have good taste, I told myself, as is borne out time and again. If I go away, I said to myself, sitting in the iron chair, I shall simply be leaving a country whose absolute futility utterly depresses me every single day, whose imbecilities daily threaten to stifle me, and whose idiocies will sooner or later be the end of me, even without my illnesses. Whose political and cultural conditions have of late become so chaotic that they turn my stomach when I wake up every morning, even before I am out of bed. Whose indifference to the intellect has long since ceased to cause the likes of me to despair, but if I am to be truthful only to vomit. I shall be going away from a country, I told myself, sitting in my iron chair, in which everything which once gave pleasure to so-called thinking people, or at least made it possible for them to go on existing, has been expelled, expunged and extinguished, in which only the most primitive instinct for survival prevails and the slightest pretension to thought is stifled at birth. In which a corrupt state and a corrupt church join forces to pull at the endless rope which, with the utmost callousness and ruthlessness, they have for centuries wound round the neck of a blind and stupid people, a people imprisoned in its stupidity by its rulers. In which truth is trodden underfoot, and lies are sanctified by all official organs as the only means to any end. I shall be leaving a country, I told myself, sitting in the iron chair, in which truth is not understood or quite simply not accepted, and falsehood is the only legal tender in all transactions. I shall be leaving a country in which the church practices hypocrisy and in which socialism, having come to power, practices exploitation, and in which art says whatever is acceptable to these two. I shall be leaving a country in which a people educated to stupidity allows its ears to be stopped by the church and its mouth by the state, and in which everything I hold sacred has for centuries ended up in the slop pails of the rulers. If I go away, I told myself, sitting in the iron chair, I shall be going away from a country in which I no longer have any place and in which I have never found happiness. If I go away, I shall be going away from a country in which the towns stink and the inhabitants of the towns have become coarsened. I shall be going away from a country in which the language has become vulgar and the minds of those who speak this vulgar language have for the most part become deranged. I shall be going away from a country, I told myself, sitting in the iron chair, in which the only model for behavior is set by the so-called wild animals. I shall be going away from a country in which darkest night prevails at noonday, and in which virtually the only people in power are blustering illiterates. If I go away, I told myself, sitting in the iron chair, I shall be leaving the disgusting, depressing, and unconscionably filthy public lavatory of Europe. To go away, I told myself, sitting in the iron chair, means leaving behind me a country which for years has done nothing but afflict me with the most damaging depression and has taken every opportunity, no matter where or when, of insidiously and malignantly urinating on my head. But isn't it madness to think of going to Palma when I'm in such a state, and when my general physical condition doesn't even permit me to walk two hundred yards out of the door? I asked myself as I sat in the iron chair. As I sat there, I thought first about Taormina and the Timeo, with Christina and her Fiat, then about Palma and the Melia, with the Canellas, their three storey palace and their Mercedes. And suddenly, as I sat in the iron chair, I saw myself running through the narrow streets of Palma. Running through the streets! I cried out, sitting in the iron chair, when I'm not capable of even walking round the outside of my own house, let alone running through the streets of Palma. For a sick man like me to entertain such an idea isn't just bordering on megalomania; such an idea is well beyond the border, it's sheer madness. And I couldn't get this madness out of my head. As I sat in the iron chair I couldn't call a halt to the madness and didn't even try. On the contrary, I indulged it to such an extent that I couldn't help shouting out the word mad. The Melia or the Timeo, Christina or the Canellas, the Fiat or the Mercedes, I speculated, unable to stop myself, as I sat in the iron chair, drawing refreshment from these ridiculous speculations -- the Melia with all the hundreds and thousands of yachts outside the window -- the Timeo with its bougainvillaeas flowering at the window -- the Melia and the incredible sea breeze -- the ancient bathroom at the Timeo -- Christina or the Canellas -- the bougainvillaeas or the sea breeze -- the Cathedral or the Greek theater, I thought, sitting in the iron chair, the Mallorcans or the Sicilians -- Etna or Pollensa -- Ramon Llull and Ruben Dario or Pirandello. At present, I finally told myself, since I want to start my work on Mendelssohn Bartholdy, I need a cosmopolitan atmosphere -- more people, more activity, more excitement, I thought as I sat in the iron chair, not a place with just one street -- and on a hill at that, hence requiring exertion -- and just one cafe, but a place with many busy streets -- and squares! and many cafes, and as many people around me as possible, for at present I need nothing so much as to have people around me - not that I want any dealings with them: I don't even want to speak with them, I thought, sitting in the iron chair, but I must have them around me. And so for all these obvious reasons I decided on Palma and against Taormina, in favour of the Canellas and against Christina, and generally in favour of a climate which would be positively beneficial to me in my condition, a summery climate such as I might expect in Palma even in February, but not in Taormina, where in February it is still wintery and rains nearly all the time. And in February, I thought, sitting in the iron chair, Etna is seldom to be seen, and even then its covered in snow from top to bottom, a constant and harmful reminder of the Alps, and therefore of Austria and home, which could only sicken me again and again. But suddenly this all appeared to me as senseless fantasizing, indulged in by an over wrought invalid, sitting in his iron chair; it did little more than make me sadder than I already was, and ended in dejection.

Thomas Bernhard Concrete
trans. by David McLintock, 1984

Discipline and Hope

Having no need to account for anything they have done, our politicians do not find it necessary to trouble us with with either evidence or argument, or to confess their errors, or to subtract their losses from their gains; they speak like the gods of Olympus, assured that if they say they are our servants anything they do in their own interest is right. Our public discourse has been reduced to the manipulation of uprooted symbols: good words, bad words, the names of gods and devils, emblems, slogans, flags. For some the flag no longer stands for the country, it is the country; they plant their crops and bury their dead in it.

There is no better example of this deterioration of language than in the current use of the word "freedom." Across the whole range of current politics this word is now being mouthed as if its devotees cannot decide whether it should be kissed or eaten, and this adoration has nothing to do with its meaning. The government is protecting the freedom of people by killing them or hiding microphones in their houses. The government's opponents, left and right, wish to set people free by telling them exactly what to do. All this for the sake of the political power the word has come to have. The up-to-date politician no longer pumps the hand of the prosperous constituent; he offers to set him--or her--free. And yet it seems to me that the word has no political meaning at all; the government cannot serve freedom except negatively--"by the alacrity" in Thoreau's phrase, "with which it [gets] out of the way."

. . . Free men are not set free by their government. Free men have set their government free of themselves; they have made it unnecessary. Freedom is not accomplished by a declaration. A declaration of freedom is either a futile and empty gesture, or it is the statement of a finished fact. As I understand it, freedom is a personal matter; though we may be enslaved as a group, we can be free only as persons. We can set each other free only as persons. It is a matter of discipline. A person can free himself of a bondage that has been imposed on him only by accepting a bondage that he has chosen. A man who would not be the slave of other men must be the master of himself--that is the real meaning of self-government. If we all behaved as honorably and honestly and industriously as we expect our representatives to behave, we would soon put the government out of work

-Wendell Berry "Discipline and Hope," 1971

Democratic Vistas 2008

Closer yet I approach you;
What thought you have of me, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance;
I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.

Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry -Walt Whitman (1819-1892)


Whitman

"I say we had better look our nation searchingly in the face, like a physician diagnosing some deep disease." - Democratic Vistas

"Look for me under your bootsoles."

On Long Island, they moved my clapboard house
Across a turnpike, & then felt so guilty they
Named a shopping center after me!
Teen-agers call me a fool.
Now what I sang stops breathing.

And yet
It was only when everyone stopped believing in me
That I began to live, again-
First in the thin whine of Montana fence wire
Then in the transparent, cast off garments hung
In the windows of the poorest families,
Then in the glad music of Charlie Parker.
At times now,
I even come back to watch you
From the eyes of a taciturn boy in Malibu.
Across the counter at the the beach concession stand,
I sell you hot dogs, Pepsis, cigarettes-
My blond hair long, greasy, & swept back,
In a vain old ducktail, deliciously
Out of style.
And no one notices.

Once, I even came back as me,
An aging homosexual who ran the Tilt-a-Whirl
At county fairs, the chilled paint on each gondola
Changing color as it picked up speed,
And a Mardi Gras tattoo on my left shoulder.
A few of you must have seen my photographs,
For when you looked back,
I thought you caught the meaning of my stare:
Still water,
Merciless.

A Kosmos. One of the roughs.

Leave me alone.
A father who's outlived his only child.

To find me now will cost you everything.

-Larry Levis (1946-1996)


Happy Independence Day . . . enjoy it while it lasts.

yeah, it's over (for) now . . .

The Seattle grunge band, Alice in Chains, used to sing a little ditty, presumably about the hard road of addiction and the struggle to clean up, called "Over Now." I can't access Youtube here in Turkey (don't ask' it's political), but I'm sure you can locate the Unplugged version there.

On a related note, bowing to the inevitable, Senator Clinton yesterday "suspended" her presidential bid. This morning, I scrolled through a transcript of her speech, hoping for something worthy of at least riffing on, but paragraphs of Democratic boilerplate don't lend themselves much to riffing, and anyway, what's the point?

Clinton lost because, well, because she's Clinton, and her assets (as is true for most of us) are inseparable from her liabilities. She was the presumptive nominee a year and a half ago. This lent her campaign an air of inevitability, which both helped and hurt her. She's as plugged into the conduits of power as any Democratic politician, particularly a relatively new one, could ever hope to be. This, combined with Clinton's honest sense of herself, led her to run as the knowing, competent insider, but she faced a blank tableau on which the electorate could deny its anxieties and inscribe its dreams. In other words, Clinton's support was a tepid pool, about a mile wide and an inch deep, until finally, it wasn't even that. Of course, she also had Bill to contend with.

The Democrats could still lose in November. They've just passed through a primary contest in which to vote for one of the two contenders was to invite a charge of racism, whereas to vote for the other was to invite a charge of sexism. Welcome to American politics, 21st century style. We're all going to have to live with these rhetorical ploys, and a good bit more. Both the Republicans and the Democrats have self-destructive impulses rooted in their respective constituencies. Come November, I plan to keep my non-voting streak alive. I'll start voting when someone starts representing me.

Hillary Clinton may or may not be angling for the Vice Presidential nomination. But based on past behavior, she probably is. After all, old habits die hard, or not at all. Speaking of which, Layne Staley, Alice in Chains lead singer, composed not one but a string of songs, similar to "Over Now" in their oblique references to the torments of addiction. They make a sometimes strangely pretty, sometimes grim, sometimes doggedly hopeful chronicle of his attempt to wrench himself free from drugs. Then he died. Drugs, of course. Found in his apartment, partially decomposed, he weighed all of 86 pounds. No one had seen him for weeks. Staley contrived to check out on exactly the same day as Kurt Cobain had, eight years before (great career move, as somebody said of Elvis) but arguably he'd been dead for years. "Over Now" ends in the following, allusive refrain:

We pay our debt sometime
Yeah, we pay our debt sometime
We pay our debt sometime
Yeah, we pay our debt sometime

On the personal level, he was apparently right, but on the political level, let's hope he's wrong.

Lyrics to "Over Now" here.

Atlanta's a distant memory, Montgomery a recent blur . . .*

Today, around lunchtime, we fly to Chicago (American Airlines, of course) and then on to Istanbul. This will be, I calculated recently, our sixth move over the past six years. Somewhere along the way, two kids appeared.

These moves haven't always meant a new job or a new city, and often they haven't even involved transporting furniture (most of the places we've lived have come furnished). Still, six moves in six years, and now with two kids. Too much moving.

Thursday afternoon, I drove up to Rome, Georgia to attend to some minor business. My father's family is from there, though my father himself grew up in a small town about 15 miles south of the city. So I've been visiting that region all my life. On the way back to Atlanta, I decided to drive through my father's hometown.

The first thing that threw me was simply the struggle to find it. I don't mean that I didn't know the way to the town, which I visited frequently as a child. What I mean is that the roads around there have been re-mapped into 4-lane highways, and there's the ubiquitous profusion of fast-food and discount stores on the outskirts, and whatever bearings and landmarks I'd used in the past to navigate into town were so lost or obscured to me that I drove around and around, knowing all the while that I was on the edge of the town, but struggling to find my way to the part still recognizable to me. I nearly gave up, but eventually I got there.

In my experience, so much has changed, and still changes, that I don't quite know what to make of it when something doesn't. It's a little disconcerting. When I was a kid, I tried to imagine what the world would look like by the time I was my parent's age, a nearly unimaginable chasm of time, and the best I could come up with was something utterly alien to everything I knew. Of course, the elementary school readers we were given, with fathers flying to work in helicopters and mother's preparing dinners in a kitchens copied from The Jetsons may have pushed me on a little in that direction.

When I finally found my way into town, and drove past the house where my father grew up, not only was it still there, it was still exactly as it was, or as I remember, from when I would visit in the summers as a child. So were all the other houses on the street, and on the next street, and the next. Years ago, my brothers and I would ride, unaccompanied, from Atlanta on the train, if you can envision this, there to be met by my grandfather at a small, white clapboard station. This was so long ago that these memories are like a few worn snapshots uncovered at the bottom of a drawer. You have to gather yourself before you even recognize what you're looking at. "Oh," you say, after a moment's pause of uneasy confusion, "there I am, standing with my brother at the beach we used to visit every summer, the one where we'd pick up sand dollars and skim them across the slough." These meager recollections swim up to you from the depths, and you realize that large chunks of your own life are mostly unrecoverable.

My grandfather disappeared forty years ago, from lung cancer. But the detached garage next to his house, where I sat in his lap while he sharpened his tools on a foot-driven grindstone, is still there. The color of the house, the gravel drive, the small screened porch, the slatted fence in the backyard, all as it was when I was young. And - so my father told me when I shared all this with him later on - just the same as when he was young, in the 1930s. He can't remember the house ever having been anything other than white with green shutters, and that's all it's ever been every time I've seen it.

I also drove out to my grandparents' cemetery plot. I didn't have any particular reason for doing this, since I wasn't going to be cleaning the headstones or leaving flowers, but it was something I wanted to do anyway. The stones looked almost new, though as I've said, my grandfather died forty years ago, and my grandmother nearly thirty. I didn't really know what to do there. I didn't have anything to offer, or to leave.

I liked looking out on the graves in the cemetery. I recognized at least half the names carved into the stones, probably more. These were names I hadn't thought about or even heard in 25 years, names remembered from when my grandmother would come to visit us, when she updated my father on all of the small doings in the lives of people he'd known growing up. Some of these names may even have belonged to distant relatives. My father's parents lived in that area long enough for third and fourth cousins to become blurred with friends my family had always known, at least in my mind. Sometimes, as a kid, I wasn't sure if the people we we drove out to visit in my grandmother's car were relatives or just someone or other she'd always known. My confusion was, in a way, understandable, because I'm not really describing the world I grew up in. I'm describing a world I knew only occasionally and intermittently, many years ago, a world my grandparents inhabited, and one my father could hardly wait to flee. He made his escape as soon as possible to Atlanta, a full fifty miles away. His parents must have admired his daring, but then again, he'd already seen Europe in the Second World War, so maybe the leap to the city came easier.

I haven't written much here lately. There seemed little reason to chronicle the mostly tedious and sometimes stressful steps involved in moving, particularly moving overseas, and what else was there for me to write about? When I'm situated in Istanbul, and have access to a computer, I'll write something new. But that'll probably be a while. In the years to come, I hope I write more and move less.

* From the song 200 More Miles by the Cowboy Junkies. You can view a sort of warbly live version here. Or maybe you'd rather just read the lyrics.