When I left Uzbekistan in October, I did not anticipate an extended stay in North Carolina, much less in a locale where the median age is about thirty years above mine. When my father fell seriously ill and my mother asked me to come to NC and help her out, it seemed perhaps my return to the States from Uzbekistan had been foreordained (if not predestined).

more on this -- cousins of mine live down this road

And then the Uzbeks announced no holiday saluting love, but rather Babur, of Genghis Khan lineage ( see post at Slate), and it seems all the more fitting not to be there this Valentine Day. As for here, solid good will and good solid will abound among the red-bedecked octogenarians.

seen outside the hairdresser's

Looking east on the way to work 10/10/11, Tashkent

North of Tashkent, 10/5/11

Home to New York (and North Carolina) from three months in Uzbekistan, sooner than anticipated, full of unforgettable images of similarity and difference and strong feelings for those so briefly and intensely in my life, more keenly aware of personal vulnerabilities and more roundly grateful, I read again this morning the words of Alisher Navoi. His statue stands as prominently in Tashkent as his place in Uzbek language and literature, and these lines read today as personal and specific, public and universal.

Better the cobble that paves the way

Than a gem locked away from the light of day.

**

The only way to decrease one’s sufferings

Is to increase one’s understanding.

**

When justice is the corner-stone of power,

A ruined land will soon be made to flower.

In a johnny pump on the Lower East Side…a fresh flower every day…August 2011

Who is Mr. Beller?

Mr. Beller has echoes of other Misters, such as
Mr. Ed, Mr. Ross, Mr. Rogers,  and Mr. Softee. 

He is someone rushing to work, or taking a solitary stroll along the river, or waving madly amidst a crowded bar, trying to get the bartender’s attention. On a less abstract note, Mr. Beller is the front for a bunch of editors and writers gathered together by Thomas Beller.

Mr Bellers Neighborhood recently published a series of works by writers, including Christie Grotheim and Jackob Hofmann, looking back a decade to September 9, 2001.

Today in my hometown of Fayetteville, North Carolina, an unforgettable high school classmate will be buried. Last week, the way in which he died rippled across Facebook and emails, my hometown paper and local law enforcement. Many of us had lost touch with Michael Evans. My strongest memories of him are now almost forty years old. From more recent years, I remember a few brief phone conversations. About five years ago, he took the time to find me, he telephoned, we said we’d meet, but we never did.

Michael touched many people in vivid and memorable ways. I think of Michael dancing, joking, questioning assumptions, pushing buttons that needed pushing, never stridently serious and at the same time never without substance, never pointless. Rarely silent, even now.