Dear Cyndy,

The maple tree in front of my window has started to shed
its leaves. I suppose it's for lack of rain that they are
grey and brown, rather than flaming crimson, as in other
years.

Our recent correspondence requires two corrections:

Your comment about Jung's ideas about memories of
race suggests that you may have misunderstood my translation
of the Rilke citation. Here's what I wrote:

==>

My own evaluation of memory and history are rooted in an observation
of Rilke's which I may have cited to you before:

"Das was geschieht hat einen solchen Vorsprung
vor unserm Meinen, dass wir's nie einholen,
und nie erfahren wie es wirklich aussah."

"That which occurs has such advance over our surmises,
that we will never catch up with it,
and never know what it really looked like."

An unpoetic, albeit literal translation. The metaphor is
of a race, in which what happens is always so far ahead
of the observer who chases after it the effort to discover
its true appearance is in vain. Such was Rilke's
interpretation of his inability to understand the motives
and to assimilate the experience of a friend's suicide.

<==

The race to which I referred is not the genetic concept of race.
I meant the Marathon-like foot race, where one runner tries
to catch up and overtake the one ahead of him.

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In the catalogue of your family's houses in Canaan,
I overlooked Ellens. So you have four prospective
family rentals available. When I mentioned the possibility
of renting, I was contemplating your own hypothetical visits
to Canaan, rather than your children's or grandchildren's.

You write:

_    "I would very much like to have my kids have a foothold
_    in the area because their cousins mean so much to them. 
_    This would negate your suggestion of their renting from
_    Gillian, Jane, or Peter's kin, since the purpose of being
_    there would be to socialize with them all.

Please don't consider me critical or unduly intrusive, when 
I ask who are the "kids" and who are their "cousins", and most
specifically, who will socialize with whom, and wouldn't such
socialization be enhanced rather than inhibited if "the kids"
were guests or renters in the home of one of those whose company
they cherished? And assuming that such socialization would be
enhanced by a place of their own, would such enhancement be worth
half a million dollars to them?

Rilke once wrote somewhere that his entire life had been the
attempt to recapture his (unfulfilled) childhood. So, in many
respects has mine, as you can infer from much that I have written
to you. I interpret your account of The Farm, your continuing
passion for Heyshott and Canaan, - and not least your willingness
to take the time to correspond with me, as incidents of an
analogous need. You won't take offence when I write that I
interpret your purchase of the Granfield property, if it came
to pass, as done for yourself, not for your children or grandchildren,
in search for your own childhood. I'm very supportive and not
at all critical: why shouldn't you make this purchase for yourself;
if accomplished astutely, prudently and wisely, it might prove to
be an investment of great benefit also to your family. (If done
impulsively, it might turn into a disaster.)

I myself would proceed in true Teutonic fashion with a detailed
exploration of all possibilities. I would reexamine de novo all
options with respect to new construction, "custom built" and
partially or entirely pre-fabricated. I would also explore the
option of modular "mobile" homes. I would establish as best I
could the market value of the Granfield property and would make
an offer at the price at which I thought it would be a very good
investment. I would, under no circumstances, permit my emotions
to seduce me to pay a price that I could not readily recover if
later I should change my mind. If you couldn't purchase the Granfield
property at a very favorable price, you would have new construction on
your own property to fall back on.  All this entails a great deal of
preliminary work with which I am prepared to give you as much help
as you want.

Please give my best to Ned.

Jochen