…which I have at one time or another undertaken, or which have otherwise been afflicted upon me by certain forces.

Introduction

For most of the last dozen days—and many of their nights—I have been engaged in untangling the skeins and feeding out the strands of a number of long-postponed assignments. All are admittedly of little innate importance, except for the increasingly shrill insistence of certain patrons who pointedly remind me of their completion at every chance, and whose notion of tardiness—by mutual assent—trumps my notion of importance.

As is often felt in times of such a rigorous attention, whether it is built by choice or need, that part of my mind responsible for the structure of the job has been driven into that state called “flow”. In the middle of a night (like this one, for I write these words at the darkest hour, in the quietest part of the house), it is as if I have spent two weeks driven by the pilot of some river craft, who handles the tiller with a subtle engaged surety while treacherous rapids are traversed. In hindsight, it is no surprise that the crew and passengers—at least those who do not find themselves retching over the sides—should feel relief at once again reaching smooth water. But they should have rested all the length of those rapids (barring retching), on the the minimal surety that the pilot had in his hand during every moment of the trip a way to grant them a controlled and exhilarating doom. If that had been necessary. Which it was not.

It is no matter. Here we are.

As a consequence—or perhaps a symptom—of this greatly increased attention being paid over these last weeks by “the pilot” in the “rapids” of my recent necessary tasks, certain memories have been shaken loose, and brought to light, and held up in comparison to more recent events. These memories are the particulars of some travels I undertook many years ago, motivated by a combination of adventurousness and necessity.

There were several trips. I am on one now, as it happens, and I shall come to that as well. In each case I left for distant strange lands armed with a motley mix of a tourist’s sensibility, a missionary’s zeal, a folklorist’s misapprehensions and an unwarranted trust in others’ tales. As is often the case when one spends long times away from home, the exotic sensibilities of the natives of those lands in all cases began to chafe, and sure as dawn I eventually regretted my surroundings, and pined to depart them.

Thus does lengthy travel end for every traveler, whether tourist or emigré, mendicant or missionary. (That this characteristic disenchantment might affects the visitors to the traveler’s own home, is of vanishing consequence, and never need be considered.)

But as I say, my late immersion in diligence has brought back certain memories of those times past and far away. A concomitant illumination has struck their facets, and ignited in me a sort of thoughtful wonder—much like one feels when the sudden reconsideration of long-ago conversations with an ancient and intimate friend, which after years pass can be re-staged, shows that one was being made an ass of, though at the time one felt the fondest sort of camaraderie.

One scarcely ever reads the abstract of one’s life from within the work itself. Rather it is like the well-known girl with the bears, had she only realized the triune pattern of her adventures when telling the tale to her own grandchildren, and until then simply been focused on the temperature of various foodstuffs, and the condition of her rump upon sitting.

I have made copious notes through the years, and today having consulted many of my old notebooks and diaries I see that my old travel experiences and concerns—the temperature of various foodstuffs, and the condition of my rump—have all along fallen down in a well-partitioned pattern as succinct as that girl’s persistent trinity. Moreover, I have not traveled alone, and even today as I write these words am part-way down a new long road, passenger among young folk of many sorts. When I hear snips and cuts of their tales, I see the same lines there as well.

Yet few of the tourists I have met—nor surely any of the natives of the lands I’ve visited—ever had a notion of what they had conspired to set themselves against, or for: with few exceptions they know only roughly where they are, by virtue of their own unquestioned presence, but never by distinction with what elsewhere may be different. Said “elsewhere” being hard enough to see, having been there; pity the ignorant and untraveled.

I know I must take care. As with any unconfirmable traveler’s tale, my own webs of interpretation are just my own, and any move to pass them on must make them sound like pedantry, or the worst meanderings of a fantasist. I will eschew all pedagoguery and pedantry, and set down the simplest facts and memories uninterpreted.

My memories of travels in those distant lands will be thus a guide, like a pilot’s log, and perhaps will help point out some shoals and reefs along the way.

As my notes are set in order, I will furnish accounts of the following voyages, which have been made (by combination of choice and accident) in my last three decades:

• My long visit to the Keepers of the Uninterpreted Record, and what was found there (in particular, the Vasty Chasm)
• Among their neighbors and enemies, the Calligraphers of The One True Story
• My brief conversion to the inexplicable faith of the Jumping Zealots of the Western Valley, explained
• My time among the Nomadic Wázirs of Negotiable Virtue

As ever, my goal is to be brief, clear, and factual in all things.