This post started as a commentary on my last major travel, in January, to Dubai to visit my relatives. The composition of that post was delayed by a combination of laziness, lack of inspiration, and a number of minor excursions here and there (Paris to teach, Verbier and Les Contamines to ski). Nearly three months later, a New Day is upon us – Spring arrives in a few hours – when a young man’s fancy turns to love, and that of a newly minted 40-year old to finishing long-begun blogs.
‘Tis true.
This past January I turned 40. Hard to believe – especially as I do not feel a day over 39 – but there you have it. I could go on either lamenting the onset of middle-age (assuming I last to my eightieth), or celebrating it (40 is the new 25, I am told, with more money and fewer pimples); I could, like so many prophets before me at this same age, wander off into the desert, or climb a mountain, or be lost in a thick forest, in the hopes of seeing a burning Bush or a shimmering Gabriel, or gaining 400 pounds and being deified; I could wax philosophical about the Meaning of Life, or lose myself in a haze of hedonistic romps … I’ll spare you all of that and simply note the occasion. And, also, note that I spent this milestone with a dear aunt whom I had not seen for over twenty years, and cousins who, last time we spent time together, were six year-olds climbing all over me at my grandmother’s place in an old quarter in Tehran.
Just seeing them again after such a long time was probably the best gift Providence (and Visa and Aeroplan) could have given me. My youngest aunt was, and remains, the very personification of kindness, warmth, and generosity. The older of my two cousins still had the same infectious laughter that I adored; the younger one and I talked and bonded as if there had not been a gulf of twenty-four years between our last two visits. My uncle was sensible and calm as I remembered him; and I met my cousin’s husband and, I hope, made a new friend in him – a kindred spirit despite our vastly different backgrounds.
As for Dubai – well, I had to eventually see what all the fuss was about. The only thing I could say is that one marvels how the Bedouins of this otherwise desolate land have managed to persuade the world over to come and invest in their corner of the Arabian desert. One wonders about countries with so much more natural wealth (one across the Persian Gulf comes to mind) that … ah, but the thing is so obvious as not to bear further observation. Dubai: not my cup of tea, but impressive nevertheless.
Upon my return from Dubai I had to get ready for a series of lectures at the Science-Po in Paris; I also spent some time in Verbier, one of Europe’s most well-known ski resorts. Unfortunately, snow conditions were, and remain, less than ideal; at the same time, it was good to have a place to go to weekends. And walking up and down the mountain to get to the apartment certainly was helpful in bringing the 40 year-old waist-line under control. Along with my season’s pass at Verbier, I also got passes for some of the other ski resorts in the region. This is why last weekend I went to Les Contamines, one of the most beautiful ski resorts in the Alps. And it was my drive to Les Contamines that inspired me for the title of this email.
“How Green Was My Valley” was the title of a wonderful, and wonderfully sad, 1941 movie starring a young Roddy McDowell. The title was a lamentation, somewhat ironic, about the passing of a way of life in a coal-mining town in Wales. The title, and the movie, came to me as I was driving down the Arve Valley, oddly green up to 1800 meters, listening to a Donna Summer song from the 70s on Nostalgia radio. The song reminded me of the first time I had heard it; how utterly carefree I had been, in that summer of 1976, newly returned from the US. It was a time, at least for me, when hope had dominion; the world was a kinder place, or at least it so seems at such a distance. I was smiling nostalgically in the car, remembering the passing of a way of life; recalling, not without a measure of irony (for all was not well in my idyllic world, as we were soon to discover), how green had been my valley. Here I was, thirty years later, driving through an unusually (for this time of year) green valley that, oddly, sadly, I knew better now than the valleys and the mountains and the streets and the streams whence I had sprung.
I wonder how much longer the Alps will retain their winter luster; whether the Mont Blanc will remain blanc for much longer. It has begun to snow again in the region – now I have to worry about my cherry blossoms – but the glaciers have already receded dangerously; “how green was my valley” would be the lamentation of a new generation used to whiter mountains and gorges, who would perhaps mourn the passing of their own way of winter life in due course. Be that as it may, they, like me, will no doubt find new valleys and new vistas to explore, new worlds in which to prosper.
It is in that somewhat bittersweet mood that I welcome the arrival of a new day, and a new Persian year; it is, however, with considerable hope and optimism that I wish all of you the best for the coming year.