The Fly on the wall

There is a certain advantage to being an observer to life rather than a participant…You can sit back, watch, make your snarky, sarcastic, cynical statements about people’ s lives and the concomitant silliness therein…but it is a hollow observation because it never gets below the surface…I scratch the surface and make judgments based on the veneer , conveniently ignoring that there are so many different layers beneath which give the surface the color and texture that we observe…what we see on the surface has its own truth, but is rarely the real truth, the reality of the totality. In the past, my letters have been of the observer…. Blowing into town for a few days, pontificating as if I had some knowledge of reality and truth and my understanding had some insigh tand getting out of Dodge …and so, now I come to Uzbekistan…not to observe, but to participate…be be involved with people’s lives and it is a very disconcerting place to be, for as much as I am having an incredible trip, I am struggling as to how to describe it because some really good and true spirits are involved here…people who have opened up their lives to me with a graciousness and honesty that is astounding to me, who often plays it so close to the vest with people….My words are no longer just for readers back home wanting to know what crazy things Carol and Jim are up to this time, but they are read by the people who have given of themselves honestly and forthrightly, and they don’t deserve to be treated as some academic dissertation of life in distant, remote places of the world. Carol has always been an extra voice in my head, letting me know when she thinks I have stepped over the line…She can offer suggestions that I won’t take from anybody else. I’ve been asked many times over the years to put these letters into book form, and I have steadfastly refused because my line has been: “I write these for myself…I share them with others, but they are really for me to remember what I see and do.” I’ve felt that if I published, I would be wounded by criticism and my ego would suffer if it was not well received and therefore, it would change how and what I wrote…but by writing for myself, I can say what I wish and the rest of the world be damned…If they don’t like it, well, screw them, don’t read it. But the world is not June Cleaver in but “burbs” with three kids and a dog…it is gritty, harsh, incomplete and often uncomfortable. The people I meet here on this trip are not abstract people eking out a life, they are living entities and I care a great deal about them…I love these kids…they bring me joy, insight, and introspection about my life and to the planet we all share. So the words I use have real impact and I’m struggling how to explain, to be truthful l and still be true to them. Since these letters go out to over a hundred people and are further forwarded many times over to people I don’t even know exist in the world, I feel an obligation to my lovely friends to be kind and gentle as well as being honest…It is a balance that I have been struggling with since the first letter….The kids read these words; they are proud of their country and their parents and their homes….my words have an impact that I am not used to them having, and I’m not comfortable with my new, self-imposed limitations. Nothing more to say really than this…I just have been stewing about this for some days now, and I needed to let it out….I talk to about it Carol and my daughter, but this is my real vent. Carol calls this my “soul searching” letter…maybe it is…I’m still looking for answers to life.