Do not misunderstand me: traveling to the United States to see the relatives, we were all looking forward to it; all the same, part of me felt the way Captain Willard must have felt as he journeyed into the North Vietnamese wilderness in search of Col. Kurtz.

I’m waiting for a mission – getting softer. Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker. And every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger. Each time I looked around, the walls moved in a little tighter.

We arrived in at Sea-Tac airport nine-ish at night, picked up the rental car and drove to my sister’s house. It surprised me, as it always does, how much traffic there now is in Seattle, even at that time of day.

Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. They brought it up to me like room service…It was a real choice mission – and when it was over, I never want another…

We stayed with her about 5 days. It’s a middle-class neighborhood near Greenlake, which means middle-class people as I knew them can’t afford it. Two forty-something Microsoft retirees live across the street raising their kid. Rock star Dave Matthews lives up the street. They have two gas fireplaces and eat a lot of takeout. It was nice to see them, to see my kids playing with her kids, to see my sister and her family doing well, the effort she puts into parenting. She’s also training for a triathlon so she went running with Alpha a few times. I only went running once, so I gained 10 pounds in America and Alpha didn’t.

Then we drove to Cannon Beach in Oregon. It was the nicest trip to the beach I’ve ever had, and several other relatives said the same thing. 14 of us stayed in 3 adjoining cabins on the beach. Alpha mentioned she’d never flown a kite and my brother went out and bought her 2 nylon kites. My brother and I built a large sand pyramid. As last year in Greece, this triggered an epidemic of ambitious sand castles along the beach. We had a barbecue, we walked to Haystack Rock and looked at the starfish, which Alpha likes. We rode these three-wheeled sand tricycles up and down the beach. The kids collected stinky shells that were forgotten in the cabins when we left. After two nights, we went to my parents’ place in the untracked wilds of SW Washington state.

I was going to the worst place in the world, and I didn’t even know it yet. Weeks away and hundreds of miles up a river that snaked through the war like a main circuit cable plugged straight into Kurtz. It was no accident that I got to be the caretaker of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz’s memory, any more than being back in Saigon was an accident. There is no way to tell his story without telling my own. And if his story is really a confession, then so is mine.

They live on 40 acres of woods surrounded by rednecks. It’s a pretty place but they rarely wander through the woods anymore because many of the neighbors are logging their places so all the scary animals some to their property. My dad doesn’t go out in the pre-dawn to collect the newspaper anymore since a bear snorted at him. And he told my mother not to call him on the walkie-talkie she takes with her on her occasional walks around the place if a cougar attacks her, as he couldn’t stand to listen to it.

They used to have a 5-acre fish pond, but it dried up this summer due to hot weather and illegal dams upstream. You’d think the State would do something about the illegal dams but it doesn’t. Still, the wildlife was a joy for our girls. Deer frolic in the yard. Hummingbirds feed outside the dining room window, and chipmunks and squirrels. They have two cats, one of which (“Stripey”) used to catch the chipmunks when they’d eat at the birdfeeder, so my mom locks Stripey up during the day. Spooky is old and lazy, so she gets to go out during the day, but gets locked up at night so no scary animal eats her.

“Your mother has an interesting attitude towards nature,” my father told me one early morning as we sat at the kitchen table doing a crossword puzzle. Normally he does them himself in the mornings, but when I visit he tells me they’re “too hard today,” and for me to solve them.

“We moved some logs and uncovered a mouse nest. I caught a mouse under a bucket. She was fat, like she was pregnant, so I figure she was the mother. I didn’t have the heart to do anything to her myself so when I came in I told your mom about it. She went out and came back a few minutes later. ‘What about the mouse?’ I asked her. ‘It’s taking a dirt nap,’ she said.”

Because there’s a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil. And good does not always triumph. Sometimes the Dark Side overcomes what Lincoln called ‘the better angels of our nature.’

I didn’t really talk much with my father. I’d wanted to talk to him, but I also knew it probably wouldn’t happen. He’s a little on the quiet side, and half-deaf as well, so even if you manage to draw him out it’s still hard to talk about anything deep and private if you have to shout while the rest of the family crowds around watching another DVD etc. We did our crossword puzzles, mostly.

We had a rental car so we could also get away at times, visiting people or shopping. Once we drove to Portland with my brother and his kids, taking all the kids out to Chinese food and an afternoon at OMSI, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. One day Beta and I went out and rented a Celtic harp. She played a few songs for my uncle and aunt, who we visited. Then we went back to my parents’ place and she played for my parents and her uncle and cousins. Afterwards she said she had enough and didn’t want to play anymore after that. Her cousin who is 7 wanted to perform too so she turned on her keyboard/synethesizer that plays pre-recorded music, but turned it off again after staring at it for a while, realizing she couldn’t really play anything herself. Later she drove her 4-wheeled child-sized recreational vehicle around the house (outside) while we all applauded. We even had to get Gamma out of bed so she could give her a ride.

The next day, a bunch of old uncles and aunts came over with food and mentioned they’d like to hear the harp. Beta had sensed this and retreated to her room beforehand. “I know you don’t want to play, but I’ll give you $10,” I told her. No answer, she just kept reading her Seventeen magazine.

“You’ll make a lot of sick old people very happy, Beta.”

For saying that I will probably burn in hell, at least if god is a 13-year-old girl. She went out and played, and a lot of sick old people were made happy. My father cried, which was no surprise as he had cried the day before. But my cynical aunt with leukemia cried! My bipolar aunt with, eh, something like Parkinsons cried! My crackpot uncle who’s still eccentric but getting a little forgetful and drives slow didn’t cry, I don’t think (Alpha told me who cried, because I didn’t look at anyone while Beta played, because if I had seen anyone cry, I would’ve cried too) but my mother! she of the dirt nap, cried. And hugged Alpha! (It was the first time Alpha felt accepted by her, after knowing me for, what, 22 years now).

So manipulating Beta into playing that day was a good thing, except for the rotting in hell part.

Then we did some other stuff, then we came home.

I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That’s my dream, it’s my nightmare. Crawling, slipping along the edge of a straight razor and surviving…