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Transcript

Affection Economy · Letter to America

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: His great grandmother's British birth certificate from Saltcote, Saskatchewan anchors the pile of proof.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: My son and I are filling out his request for certification of his Canadian citizenship.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: The attachments are weight bearing.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: A genealogical chain, from my grandmother's document, a rightful Canadian who is actually ashamed of her birthplace, through my dad's, my son's grandfather's, birth certificate and certificate of citizenship, and the same for me.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Four generations suddenly collapsed into one folder, a form submitted to a government agency for processing, proof of payment of$75 Canadian dollars printed out to complete the transaction.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: My phone pings with a text from T-Mobile telling me the$170 charge for our family plan will be withdrawn by autopay on September 4th.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I probably should let our kids have their own plans, but I think it's not a big deal, and why not let them say on the plan if it saves a few bucks for them?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: He asks if he should start paying for the plan himself.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I reply, maybe someday, but not yet.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: This month, he's earning more than I am.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I left it on my card.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Having him next to me while we fill out these forms feels a lot like filling them out for myself just over a year ago.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: The same way it felt when my dad filled out his forms and helped my sister and me put together our own folders of foundational documents.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Boring paperwork, and my mind wanders, wondering if it's even worth it.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: My sister is now ensconced in Toronto.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Lease signed, kids enrolled, phone numbers, bank accounts, health coverage, etc.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: My grandmother ignored and even hid the fact of her birth in what became Canada.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: My dad helped us gather up the evidence and fill out the forms.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: My sister ends up starting a life on the other side of the planet.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: My dad leaves to join her in a couple of weeks, providing a helping hand and some sharing of expenses.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: My sister's invitation created an impossible to imagine opportunity for my 84-year-old dad to live in an English-speaking country for the first time since 1978, a chance to live with his daughter and her family, his grandchildren.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: We print out the proof of payment, put the folders in an envelope for each of my sons, and pack them in the suitcase.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to join us in Egypt.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: He found an affordable ticket that let him stop in Istanbul on the way back and paid for it himself.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I saw his face when he walked through their door.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Friends whose parents were friends with mine, whose kids are now sitting on a beach together.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's back in Brooklyn, and I received a note from a friend that his daughter and a few of the kids we'd been with in Egypt had attended a quote rager at my son's place last weekend.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Even being here in Istanbul, in this house, my parents' home, is a serendipitous stroke of luck.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Some good, some bad.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: My mother's Alzheimer's, a plea for help, COVID, empty nesting notions of an adult gap year, or sabbatical.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: In a funny way, my parents' house is what brought us here on a cheap ticket with a few suitcases.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's what put the wheels in motion that got me my Turkish passport.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And yet Dad's the one who once said to me, You gave me my life back.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Five years ago, I sat in the same room on a laptop, pulling together the files to prove my Turkish citizenship for my mother.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: She was sitting nearby and already unable to fully fathom who I was.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: As I recall, that application cost even less than the Canadian one, but it was aptly Byzantine.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: My son left last week.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: My dad leaves next.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting in what we affectionately call the Turkish room, reading the New York Times and listening to Kearney's speech on the impending trade war between Canada and the U.S., a shared history and sense of security, nearing a breaking point over roughly 15 billion of new duties against an$872 billion relationship, about 1.7%.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Most of which won't be realized, because 50% is a rate at which a lot of trade simply stops or reroutes rather than pays.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Just last month, Canada opened the Gordy Howe International Bridge at Windsor.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: $6.4 billion, eight years.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: A five-axle truck pays$43.75 to cross it.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: 100 yards on that same truck carrying a$50,000 load meets a 50% duty and owes$25,000.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: $5,000 per axle.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: One of those numbers is routinely paid.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: The other will be avoided, most likely by crossing the Pacific.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Rena barked her sharp, earnest, I need to go out, bark.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: We got up and took her up the road for a walk.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Along the way we ran into Gabby, our neighbor's caretaker.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: He was pruning a massive weeping willow, and we stopped to say hi, and he asked about my dad and his move.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I acknowledged the unexpectedness of his departure, of the series of recent moves that had left me a bit whiplashed.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: We distracted ourselves by talking about his work.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Kolegasin, I said, may it come easy.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: You say it to anyone you find working.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: He helped us gather four branches and told us a story.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: A man in King Solomon's court catches Azrael, the angel of death, looking at him.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: He reads it as wrath.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: He begs Solomon for the wind to carry him to India, and Solomon sends him.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Later Azrael comes to Solomon, and Solomon asks why he looked at the man that way.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Azrael says, It wasn't wrath, it was astonishment.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: He'd been ordered to take that man's soul in India that very day, and there the man stood in front of him in Jerusalem.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: We paused and got back to weeping willows and how to plant them.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: We've always wanted one like the beautiful centerpiece of El Poland Spring in the Presidio of San Francisco.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Gabi smirked cheekily and said, just shove just about any twig in the ground and it will grow.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I laughed.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't, and I realized he was dead serious.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's apparently that simple.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: In the right soil, with enough sun and water, freshly cut branches will simply root and grow.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: My move to Turkey, my sisters and fathers to Toronto, a grandmother and mother from opposite sides of my family tree, planting descendants in places they thrive and grow, unplanned, unexpected.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: My Turkish wife from Westchester, New York, my Canadian father from Minneapolis, Minnesota, my American son, sprouting roots in the western desert of Egypt.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: The branches are stuck in the mud of the spring between us and the forest.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see how long it takes for them to provide shade and drainage for our property.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: There was a heavy rain last night, which should help.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is Ham Dalin from Istanbul.