An Advocate of the Devil

I live in a bit of a dilemma as an American in Belgium. On the one hand, I am supposed to somehow fit into a slotted role of the ex-patriate, a role that I have flat-out avoided and refused to embrace, and then on the other, I should be respectful of the culture in which I chose to be a part of, for better or worse. In some ways, I have failed at both horns of this dilemma in that I neither subscribe to being the American abroad, nor do I fully respect what I see here, though would rather offer an informed and somewhat scathing critique, something I have held back in doing, out of some outmoded form of gentlemanly respect. In other words, I chose to be here, and though at some level I am "stuck" here now because of life's choices and events, I am wearing thin of the veiled decency that we view other cultures with and with which they view us.

This is a problem for me.

Why? Why should I not just unleash vitriolic venom on what I see being "wrong" with Belgium, and consequently my cultural surrogacy that I have acquired being a father to a half-American, half-Belgian daughter, thus securing my ties to this country for the rest of my life?

There are many reasons why this is a problem, and I have been trying to sort through them of late, and I find myself wanting.

In the first place, my daughter is also part of this country, and with genetics, we all inherit, like it or not, certain characteristics of our ancestors. And, this can go back many generations, not just to the immediate one that I am American and her mother is Belgian (and some would correct me here and say: Flemish). But, even further, my own background goes back to German, Scottish, and perhaps English. My ex-wife's lineage is not entirely clear and my suspicions is possible somewhat southern mediterranean, even Greek. Though, that is speculation, but nonetheless, my daughter is a mixture of several cultures, and I feel that it is incumbent upon me to help her to see the best of all of the worlds that she is coming from, even if I don't agree with them.

This is the first level of the challenge, to go beyond my own issues and potentially negative responses and observations about living in Belgium, so I want to stay positive for her sake, and I will, but I will also remain realistic about the good and bad of both being American and Belgian (Flemish, European, Northern European).

However, a few years ago, I was also designated as a Fulbright visiting professor to the Universiteit Antwerpen. Part of my charge as a Fulbright is to both be an ambassador of my own culture as well as a conduit for the culture that I am in to help bridge any differences on a level of cultural, social and educational discrepancies. I have tried to fulfill this charge whenever I am in Belgium, back in America or even in a third location such as India or Italy, or wherever.

But, when we put our best foot forward, put on our best face, or dress up in the Easter-Sunday garb of being such an ambassador, I fear that there is a disjunct between reality and dress up.

What does it mean to be a representative of one's country? I don't envy my President, Mr. Obama, nor any of his predecessors because what does it really mean to represent an entire country, especially one on the level and magnitude of the USA?

I've reflected quite a bit on the details of whom I have been and what I have "represented" as being an American abroad here in Belgium, though also in Italy, India and the numerous other countries I have visited in my years alive on this planet, and I have done the best that I could, despite being che brutta figura at times, or merely a bumbling American. The flip side is that it is not always easy and definitely not a bad thing to be American, but it does bring out the devil's advocate at times on both sides of the equation. It's in the details.

To be continued....

O, Rocks!

Today, I began a new blog called, "You May Leave if You Wish," which is to be a pseudo-chronicle, reconstruction of its origins, and preparatory musings of my upcoming journey to Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. Upon thinking about that blog, I of course stumbled upon the silent tomb of this blog, begun and abruptly halted three years ago soon upon having moved to Antwerp as a still slightly younger, definitely more naïve, Fulbright professor to teach British and American Literature at Universiteit Antwerpen. Much has happened since my last post.

There is a curious passage in Ulysses, which I am currently re-reading for the nth time, but perhaps really just for the first, in the so-called "Aeolus" chapter, which reads: "I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time that it was that small act, trivial in itself, that striking of that match, that determined the whole aftercourse of both our lives." (Ulysses, 140) Curious for many reasons, not the least that it is not clear who the "I" is as most of the novel is in the third person, but also for its placement. Tucked in a completely innocuous sub-section of the chapter, this line is, for all intents and purposes, the philosophy of the entire book, if one were to go so far as to be so bold as to say, which I am now saying.

Joyce's penultimate tome about the day in the lives of quite a good number of Dubliners is about just that, the crossings and criss-crossings of seemingly inconsequential events that are essentially the further woof and warp of the fabric of our quotidian lives and are the determinants of the entire aftercourses of our lives as a whole. In the "Wandering Rocks" chapter, these characters move and sway through the streets of Dublin, sometimes meeting, sometimes not, but always affecting the others' lives in some way, whether grand or small, though always affecting.

However, to go further, which I have elsewhere (queue up  Jon Lovitz as "The Critic" saying, "Buy My Book! Buy My Book!"), this is Stephen's proof by calculus that Shakespeare is the ghost of himself, and is simultaneously his own son, father (this conversation is in the proximity of Trinity College...)and every other character he ever created and so on. A beyond-the-pale reflection of Joyce himself, who in turn is the creator of all of the characters in Ulysses, thus being thousands of people at once, meeting himself portraited as an artist as a younger man, Stephen, seen through the eyes of a more experienced, cuckolded family man, the everyman, Bloom.

Reading the "Circe" chapter last evening outside at the Jazz cafe, De Muze, in the heart of the old city of Antwerp, it was hard not to live some parallel lives of the characters I was reading. I first read Ulysses in Antwerp, nearly 18 years ago to the day, a good part of it in De Muze, where I also had the first date with the woman that I would be married to soon afterwards, and with whom I am now engaged in a divorce process as I write nearly two decades after that seemingly innocuous encounter.

Sitting there, looking up from my book intermittently, absorbing what I had read and glancing around, I wondered to myself as well. Am I meeting myself coming and going? Sitting in that cafe, in the same cafe that has been there, itself changed little, though now populated with new people, living different, yet similar lives. Young couples, where would it lead to? Older couples, where had it gone? Was I still that same starry-eyed American kid with a head full of ideas? Or was I now an older and wiser American who has seen much more of the world now, both physically and mentally, though still with a head full of ideas? Or, both? Or, more than both?

Auto-Metempsychosis?

O, Rocks!