Do What I Will Never Do.

It Interests Me To Imagine Characters Shifting From One Situation And One Location To Another For Whatever The Circumstances May Be.

While The Astronauts, Heroes Forever, Spent Mere Hours On The Moon, I Have Remained In This New World For Nearly Thirty Years. I Know That My Achievement Is Quite Ordinary. I Am Not The Only Man To Seek His Fortune Far From Home, And Certainly I Am Not The First. Still, There Are Times I Am Bewildered By Each Mile I Have Traveled, Each Meal I Have Eaten, Each Person I Have Known, Each Room In Which I Have Slept. As Ordinary As It All Appears, There Are Times When It Is Beyond My Imagination." (from "the Third And Final Continent")

Ive Inherited A Sense Of That Loss From My Parents Because It Was So Palpable All The Time While I Was Growing Up, The Sense Of What My Parents Had Sacrificed In Moving To The United States, And Yet At The Same Time, Building A Life Here And All That That Entailed.

Gogol Is Unaccustomed To This Sort Of Talk At Mealtimes, To The Indulgent Ritual Of The Lingering Meal, And The Pleasant Aftermath Of Bottles And Crumbs And Empty Glasses That Clutter The Table.

You Remind Me Of Everything That Followed.