tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2012://1 2012-04-02T15:51:30Z Movable Type 3.35 tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2012://1.728 2012-04-02T15:45:52Z 2012-04-02T15:51:30Z

What I like about New York is that I can easily disappear in the crowd. I can often be an unknown, for I don't know many people here. In this state of wandering, I think of my idea of love....

lili What I like about New York is that I can easily disappear in the crowd. I can often be an unknown, for I don't know many people here. In this state of wandering, I think of my idea of love. I decide, after years of dreaming, that my idea of love is non-existent. That I have fabricated something borrowed from childhood cartoons and fairytales, from films that ended happily ever after, from the love that I didn't see between my mother and father. A friend asked, "Well, explain to me, what is this love?" And I didn't know the answer. I could only tell him that I am sure it doesn't exist. This love of my imagination pains me so much, for I have on a few occasions attempted to open my heart with it. But in the end, the receiver was either oblivious, or simply not the right person. And with this opening of the heart, as I have so much to give, the wound gradually stretches until the heart refuses to close up. I am now walking around the city with an open heart, an open wound, looking for a love that may possibly be made up from only figments of my imagination. When the Q train heading to Manhattan goes up on the Manhattan Bridge, I look out to the glimmering river, the city shining under the morning sunlight. This fantastic image infuses with my idea of love, and it is in this moment that I want to cry since the pain in my open heart has reached its peak. These brief moments above the bridge, where no one disrupts the suspension of time, stay with me for most of the day. I am, every now and then, lost in the idea of my love, while people walk around me, sometimes blocking my way. New York becomes bigger as I am lost in this small space of time. Sometimes I feel so small that breathing normally seems not only impossible, but useless. It is perhaps the nonexistence of this love that frightens me most, the possibility that I will never be able to receive as much as I am willing to give. These are the fears in my mind, and the wounds of my open heart remain unhealed. tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2012://1.727 2012-02-20T17:56:36Z 2012-02-20T18:16:13Z

Immigration creates distance, forcing us to separate. The separation becomes a part of everyday living, and we learn not just to cope, but to also live it, learn it, and breathe it until it becomes habit. There is the weight...

lili Immigration creates distance, forcing us to separate. The separation becomes a part of everyday living, and we learn not just to cope, but to also live it, learn it, and breathe it until it becomes habit. There is the weight of separation that becomes another skin layer, along with wounds, scars and tears. It’s like seeing your father cry when he loses his brother, or your mother when she becomes a grandmother for the first time and she is vulnerable for once. These are moments when you realize how fragile everyone can be, how vulnerable to loss, to separation of mother and daughter as the latter takes the new role. All the distances and separations have weighed me down over the years. My cousin Sasha left for a few years to Albania when we were around the age of six. We were inseparable, and I remember the anxiety I felt, for she was the first person to have ever left. I imagined her in the war-torn country, and missed her even though we sent each other letters often. The fear of her not returning, or of our relationship changing were the root of anxiety, and as I would learn later, the root for most forms of anxiety. Later, the separations became a constant in my life. They, along with the distances made me grow up faster, made me vulnerable and yet strong. Vulnerable to the weight, strong to my coping and self-defense mechanisms. The heaviest weight, one I still continue to feel at moments, was my father leaving. The distance was a lot, especially for a child, and phone calls hardly sufficed. Our home became sad when he left for the States, but to a greater degree for me as I suffered through and cried incessantly. The weight of his leaving, and the weight of having to grow up have made me who I am now. I am now living alone in a city not too far from my family. We have managed the two different states with my infrequent bus trips from New York to Virginia. New York at times eats me up with the weight of loneliness, and the old pains of separation still gnaw at me. My therapist says I carry an old sadness every time I begin crying. This old sadness weighs more than I can bare at times. It takes me underground as I take the subway each day. It follows me as I work, as I eat, and sleep and walk. I hide it sometimes, I push it aside, I pretend it is not there and I imagine I am completely free until it comes back in a giant wave and knocks me sideways. The old sadness taints my presence. Living in the moment with the constant fear of that moment ending makes living a harder task. It's like being with a lover and wanting to hold onto each moment as the two of you are tangled together, your weights combined, with no separations. It's wanting to hold his fingers around yours, to fill in any gap by wrapping your bodies around each other, and not parting from the moment, the togetherness, the perfect bonding. It's wanting to hold on to his smell. And yet life continues, even with the distances, even with the separations, it continues as we struggle to find our ways through them. Memories of separation, like a father and brother leaving, a cousin leaving, an uncle dying, a house being sold, a country being forgotten, a best friend leaving, and on and on and on... tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2012://1.726 2012-01-16T03:28:55Z 2012-01-16T04:16:33Z

One summer night, my cousins and I, including our parents, decided to take a swim in the Caspian Sea. My cousin's family had a villa house right by the beach, and that part of the ocean was ours, a private...

lili One summer night, my cousins and I, including our parents, decided to take a swim in the Caspian Sea. My cousin's family had a villa house right by the beach, and that part of the ocean was ours, a private space where we lit fires and ate barbeque. All I remember is the dark water, the soft sand between my toes, the warm air, and a lot of laughter. My younger cousin and I were just sitting near the edge, getting wet, while his older brothers were going for a swim. "Don't go too far!" Their mother yelled after them. Earlier, we had been dancing to traditional southern Iranian music, the kind that requires going around in circles and throwing our arms up in the air. We had a lot of nights like that, just dancing, playing cards until we all got exhausted and went to bed. The villa was an escape from Tehran, the crowded, polluted capital. It was an escape for us kids because we weren't in school, and because we could run around on the beach and make sand castles or throw sand at each other. There was something about that place that I continue to be nostalgic for. I remember these white walls that surrounded the orchards and the steps we walked up to get to the gate, and then after that, it was just freedom. The freedom to run, to watch the waves, to be children, and careless. Our parents' political past, their obtrusive lack of freedom was something we children weren't aware of yet. And now when I realize this, I know that parting for them from such a peaceful place must have been so much harder than it was for us. I understand now, why my mother always swam into the depths, deep ends of the ocean, far away from the beach, and pulled me along with her even though I screamed, and begged because I was afraid of the deep waters. She never was afraid. For her, that was the most free she could be, and taking me with her was only her way of sharing that freedom with me. But I always cried, and always became mad because I thought she never understood my fear. She even had this habit of pushing my head down the water, just for a moment, as if to test me, as if to make me feel there was nothing to be afraid of. I always swallowed the salty waters because she did it when I least expected her, and because I didn't yet trust her. I just wrapped my arms tightly around her, and sometimes she wanted to let go, but I fought and in the end, I think I disappointed her. I am even nostalgic for the car rides back to the city, where everyone was less jolly, more bored, not ready for reality. I always became carsick; there were a lot of deep turns, around the mountains. We were up high, often very close to the edge where below was just rocks and the ends of the mountains. Those roads were dangerous; a lot of deathly accidents happened there. My mother always wanted me to pay closer attention to the view, to nature, but I always wanted to close my eyes, and try to sleep. Perhaps if I had listened, I'd have a better image in my head now, and I'd describe it better. But I remember. I remember her, and us, and our surroundings, and all those trips that we all knew would eventually end. When they sold that villa house, it was as if our freedom was sold. And we eventually all immigrated, and there was only with us the memories of a time long ago when some of us basked in the innocent pleasures of childhood, and others in the little freedom they could acquire. And the Caspian sea remains still, a big part of my memory, now deeply vague, but bitterly sweet. tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2011://1.725 2011-12-12T09:35:05Z 2011-12-14T02:17:28Z

A year ago, we moved into a new apartment in Astoria. It was winter and a fresh blanket of snow covered the sidewalks; I had just returned from London and was also new to the neighborhood. I remembered the feelings...

lili A year ago, we moved into a new apartment in Astoria. It was winter and a fresh blanket of snow covered the sidewalks; I had just returned from London and was also new to the neighborhood. I remembered the feelings of moving to a new place: I have traveled and lived in different places for much of my life. The smell is something you learn to get used to, like a new car when it has that particular smell the first month. But the scent of uncertainty--for me as a traveling immigrant, it is something completely different. It is a kind of thing that is both frightening and exciting. You know that once again you are in an unfamiliar land, facing the familiar fears of uncertainty, of never belonging anywhere, of loneliness not only as a stranger, but as a migrant, as a writer. When I was 10, my mother and I lived in Brussels for three cold months. There was that smell then too, but one less striking, less harsh. I was a kid then, and the sadness I carry with me now was not as present. I liked the new place. It was my first time out of Tehran, and the European lifestyle intrigued me. The way people casually carried themselves, the way couples kissed in public and everyone just seemed easier at ease. It was the first time I went to the circus, and the first time I tasted MacDonalds. The first time I saw a church and heard a language different than Farsi. It was then that I realized the world was bigger than I knew. It was then that I knew I would be traveling more. It was then that I realized I too could be a stranger, and out of my comfort zone as a 10 year-old. Then, I was okay with impermanence. I had no fears of leaving Iran, and the trip to Europe to this day is my favorite memory of being a traveling child. There is with leaving, an emptiness. First, it is the physical like a room that becomes bare after you take out the furniture, the décor, the things that made it yours. Then, it is the emptiness you feel inside as you say goodbye to people, to objects you’ve become attached you, to a bird that kept you company. There is too, the notion that this won’t be the last time you feel and smell emptiness, there is that bitter realization that leaving is a permanent part of life, and that it gets harder as you become more attached, and as your feelings mature with age. There is the fear of not knowing how to cope with this now really strong emptiness. When you are eight, it is not so bad, for you are still less affected by reality. It is only hard that your father has left, and you are not sure how to cope with his leaving. But as a 23 year-old who has now experienced many goodbyes, and many leavings, the pain somehow has accumulated to be something like a monster, a heavy, atrocious apprehension. The smell of leaving, that faint aftermath of your friend’s soft cologne that you forever remember as her smell, the smell of the hallway you spent a year walking its stairs, the smell of air right when you walk out the door and the wind hits your face, the smell of that first winter, and the last with which you leave, these smells are what become you, what become memories. tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2011://1.724 2011-11-16T16:28:19Z 2011-11-16T16:32:21Z

The hardest part about being 15 was I realized I no longer belonged to Tehran, my country of birth. It had been four years since I had left Iran, four years since I'd seen my siblings, four years after immigration....

lili The hardest part about being 15 was I realized I no longer belonged to Tehran, my country of birth. It had been four years since I had left Iran, four years since I'd seen my siblings, four years after immigration. My mother and I both decided it was a good idea for me to go for a month in the summer after my freshman year in high school. It was exciting, and my friends and teachers were all excited for me, knowing how long it had been, knowing it was a long, big journey. I fell asleep in the Iranair airplane, the final plane that would land in Tehran. I opened my eyes and found a plate of Iranian food in front of me, rice and some kind of meat. I ate it eagerly, I hadn't even noticed the flight attendant bringing it over. When the plane landed, everyone cheered and clapped. The city lights, my city lights shone. It wasn't that I felt like I was at home, but knowing I could be back, knowing I had people waiting to see me, was sufficient. And at that time, I wasn't yet dwelling on the idea of "home," nor was I trying to redefine it for myself. I spent a month observing my own country, and as my trip came to a close, I realized sadly that I would never live there again. That I wouldn't want to. I felt helpless for realizing I was a stranger there, and that the freedom I lacked had suddenly hit me at the age of 15. I understood then why everyone had left, but it wasn't enough for me to move on and let go. Then there was the guilt of having the previlege to be a tourist, to have the option to leave for good. I left with a heavy heart. When I parted from my siblings, I cried so hard and so much that even while the women in the airport security searched me, their eyes cold, as they sat fully covered in black veils, I continued to cry. On the plane, I thought of my cousin, who I wouldn't see again until eight years later. It was then that I decided I would never go back to visit, unless I had someone traveling with me. I couldn't do the goodbyes alone. I have not yet been back. tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2011://1.723 2011-11-14T18:15:41Z 2011-11-14T18:20:13Z

I learned as a child that happy moments are fragile. I taught myself to hold onto moments, single memories, all a million images now cluttered in my mind. Because people left and most often didn't return, for they started a...

lili I learned as a child that happy moments are fragile. I taught myself to hold onto moments, single memories, all a million images now cluttered in my mind. Because people left and most often didn't return, for they started a new life in America, time became an obsession. Time became so significant that the present almost vanished, it was only now the future I feared, the future without the people I loved, the future where I had to fill in their emptiness. When my siblings and I reunited after a few years in Turkey, we spent two weeks together in Istanbul, in a cozy rental apartment. The place was in a good location, and we had a kitchen to ourselves as well. My Mom and grandmother took turns cooking, and it felt like we were back in Tehran. But we all knew that after two weeks my siblings would return to Tehran, my sister wishing she didn't have to, my brother still undecided about America. We knew that my parents and I would return to the States, and I knew that I had a short time to be happy. What I remember is that we drank a lot of tea, ate a lot of ice cream, for it was summer, and took as many photos as possible. We were tourists, so we learned the ways, took cabs, visited important places, and loved the beauty and scenery of Istanbul. And every evening, when the sun began to set, and the Azan (the religious chanting) from the mosque played from the loud speakers, a sadness took over me that I will never forget. It is that nostalgic sense that the day is over, and time once again betrayed me, reminding me I cannot hold on to it, that I have no control over how it moves, how it gives me less time to spend with my family. But we had many laughs during our tea time. We loved that we could choose amongst the many flavors, like apple and cherry. We laughed because we always do when we get together, and with the difference in age, and the different generations there are a handful of jokes and memories to recount. My grandmother is especially fond of story telling, and occasionally she will surprise us with a humorous story, or even a dirty joke. The two weeks were over, and my siblings had a flight a day before my parents and me. That night was one of my worse nights, for the apartment felt so empty, so dark, so sad and I couldn't bare it. I cried, and upset my parents with my angry mood and my constant crying. I almost forgot that night, but now that I began writing I am remembering how much it hurt. That night changed the trip, and I couldn't let go even after all the mental preparation, even after knowing all along that it was just a trip, and trips always end. I always became angry after goodbyes. It was not in my hand, no part of my life felt like it was controllable. And the only thing I wanted was to not have to say goodbye so often, so many times. And yet they continue to be part of my life, they continue to hurt, and the amount of pain it causes me continues to baffle my mother, who has had the unprecedented ability to let go so strongly that I will forever envy her. tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2011://1.722 2011-11-14T03:39:14Z 2011-11-15T04:27:11Z

I don’t remember the first time my father left Iran, but I remember the time he left again after a six-month visit. I don’t remember the first time because I didn’t think that he had no intention of returning. I...

lili realize people can leave, people you love like your father, your life changes. When you accept that people do leave, and that they may not return, you grow up. My life changed when I was eight, and I have been struggling since then to accept it. I haven’t grown up. ]]> tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2011://1.721 2011-11-10T19:16:51Z 2011-11-10T19:22:33Z

My father worked the night shifts at the 7-eleven, and one night he fell asleep behind the wheel, and had a fender bender. It was then that my mother persisted he find another job, one where he would not work...

lili My father worked the night shifts at the 7-eleven, and one night he fell asleep behind the wheel, and had a fender bender. It was then that my mother persisted he find another job, one where he would not work the night shifts. But car troubles continued, for we could only afford used ones. They broke down, one after the other, bringing everything to a halt. Nothing was stable. That, I learned to be part of immigration. The instability, the transience, the uncertainty of things, of ways of life, of the path we had taken on. For me, it wasn't just survival. I hadn't left a war-torn country, I hadn't suffered, but only the absence of my father as he spent his first few years ill in the States, undergoing multiple grave surgeries. No, I hadn't really suffered to be in need of survival. But rather, I was trying to make sense out of the new life, and to accept that I had to assimilate, that I had to learn English as perfectly as possible to fit in and belong. I had to figure out how to carry myself, how to dress, how to be. It may be too extreme to say immigration was like a rebirth. But then again, what I was 12 years ago bares almost no resemblance to what I am now. The apartment complex began to make me sick, not physically, but mentally I wanted to get out of it. I knew we wouldn't stay there forever. I knew my mother wasn't the type to sit still and let it grow on her. She got her driver's license, despite my father's lack of support, and she changed her job, and she attended her English classes. She was my hope, my only hope that there would be a brighter future. But it was a slow process. Too slow for a restless child like me. I had trouble in school, not because I was doing poorly, but because I was not good enough for myself. Even when I passed the test to move to a regular English classroom with native speakers, I knew I was behind. I knew I had taken a test to be there, and I probably never really gave myself credit to have passed it. I never trusted myself to speak out loud in class, for fear of making a speech error. So I reverted to writing only, and unless I was called on, I seldom raised my hand. It's been 12 years now, and I take voice lessons, where I get to sing. But even now I have a hard time hearing myself. It is not an error of speech I am looking out for, but my voice itself that startles me. It's been quiet for so long that now as I am trying to let it be free, it frightens me, and I almost wish for it to not come out. It used to embarrass me, my voice. And I must let it be free now, for it's been silenced. It was in the first grade when my elementary teacher in Iran called me out on being too talkative. I learned to silence myself, and though the new country encouraged me to speak, I didn't allow it. It is easy to assume one is free in a democratic country, in a place where no dreams are banned. But when the soul itself has been imprisoned for a long time, when the person holding the voice captive is afraid to let go, one is not yet free. tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2011://1.720 2011-11-09T17:55:01Z 2011-11-09T17:56:23Z

So often in that apartment I wished for a private space to cry, to scream, to express all the frustration and anger I carried as a child, trying to be adult about my lack of English in an English-speaking society....

lili So often in that apartment I wished for a private space to cry, to scream, to express all the frustration and anger I carried as a child, trying to be adult about my lack of English in an English-speaking society. Trying to learn that perhaps my childhood had ended abruptly, without me realizing, or anticipating it. My writing craze started with an insignificant short-short story in Ms. Ford's English class. Ms. Ford, who had stylish grey hair, who was tall, and loud and pronounced my name strongly, dragging it out like it was some mystical title of a foreign poem. The story was about a girl who made a mask for halloween, from what I vaguely remember. Ms. Ford encouraged me to edit it, and together we polished it until she decided it was worthy to be read out loud for the class. I occupied my time at home, trying to perfect a language that seemed unreachable. I couldn't express every fear, every anger to my mother who was struggling herself. My mother who had given up 50 years as a mother and housewife, to now be serving lunch at a high school cafeteria. And yet she was more free than I ever have been, but I didn't know that then. She once told me the story of how she nearly cried when she left the cookies too long in the oven and they burned, and she was having a hard time explaining what happened to her boss. The trouble with older parents, who are hard-working, and do the best they can for the betterment of their children's future, is that if you are a mature child, you know that already. You are then reluctant to express the difficulties you are having for fear of appearing ungrateful. Of course, my unhappiness showed. My mother knew I wasn't laughing; she'd caught me crying on multiple occasions. But she also never promised everything will be okay. And while we all grew out of the fear of immigration, and moved on with our lives, and became "successful" in terms of finding our comfort space, and becoming more or less who we are today, for the better, it never really was okay. At least not for me. If I am still having a hard time, still searching for a "home" that doesn't exist, for a perfect version of myself that doesn't exist, for a permanence that I've always feared, then I have not been okay. Any time I begin to sense that I am staying somewhere too long, I get this ache to leave, and move, and change my external space, always under the false impression that with it my internal feelings will be at peace, will rewaken and break the pattern of constancy and boredom. There is something in me always wanting to experience, and I have formed this illusion that the more experiences I acquire, the more complete a person I'll be. Is the fear of permanence rooting from once learning as a child that there was no going back to the country of my birth? Is it that with impermanence I have at least the security of knowing I am not stuck somewhere, having to put up with the fears I carry with myself, a running away. Maybe I've been running away for too long. And maybe it is time to face myself, the person I constantly run away from. tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2011://1.719 2011-11-09T14:37:58Z 2011-11-09T14:55:06Z

Perhaps it's the natural instinct of an immigrant to want to make the new country his home. Yet he continues to fail with every attempt because the birth country cannot be replaced. The definition of home becomes diffused, molded, and...

lili Perhaps it's the natural instinct of an immigrant to want to make the new country his home. Yet he continues to fail with every attempt because the birth country cannot be replaced. The definition of home becomes diffused, molded, and mended as time moves forward, and the immigrant grows in his new place. And what is home really, but a smell, a feeling, a memory, and we cannot recreate such precise elements. So the search for a "home" is not only impractical, but also simply impossible. The new land will certainly bring with it its own unique smell, feeling, and memory. My first "home" in Virginia was on Arlington Boulevard. My feelings then, and now have remained to be a mix of anger and embarrassment, for the place never felt like home. It never felt like it was mine, like it belonged to my parents. It was a starting point, a roof, a space that lacked anything resembling what I had left behind. It was a like a long dream, where every morning I longed to be woken, and not in that space. But we lived, as any family did, by buying a few pieces of furniture, a rug that later I began to despise as well, not only for its poor quality, but its lack of elegance. We paid rent, or my parents did. We had plants, my mother did. And I slept where the dining room table would ideally be, and my parents in the one bedroom. The smell I remember now, is a not-so-pleasant odor of the long hallways, the shared space of strangers, the meals they cooked, the meals my mother cooked. The memory of it is present in my mind, for I have a strong visual memory, but it is one I don't like recalling, retelling, or even writing. But in order to move on, I must write it, and describe how I felt, and why it was so filled with sadness that even now it brings me to tears. I was then 11, and spent my first year of immigration in a state of ignorance and impermanence. I asked my mother if we could return. I don't remember whether I used "we" or "I." But I made this point clear that I was neither happy, nor willing to pretend. She eventually broke it to me that there was no returning, that this would have to work, that I would learn English the best I could, that I was young, that Tehran had nothing to give to me, that I had nothing to give to Tehran. I spent the first two, three years writing letters in that space, after school, at night, on weekends, whenever I found the proper solitude. I wrote my letters in Farsi of course, and addressed them to various cousins, and each of my siblings. The letters always began with "I miss you all," and ended with, "I hope to see you soon, or I hope that soon we'll all be reunited." And with this statement, I moved on, and ahead, my English improving, my social life improving, and eventually there were no letters, and the "reunion" took so long that it felt like an after-thought. tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2011://1.718 2011-11-05T02:06:03Z 2012-02-23T19:39:25Z

One school night, after I finished praying, my brother came saw me crying. I told him I didn’t want to go to school, that I couldn’t go. I was in the third grade, and couldn’t stand my teacher. She was...

lili One school night, after I finished praying, my brother came saw me crying. I told him I didn’t want to go to school, that I couldn’t go. I was in the third grade, and couldn’t stand my teacher. She was one of those women who intimidated even a small ant. I don’t know why I feared her so much, but I never had a voice, let alone the ability to stand up to authority. I had learned to obey authority, not question it. My family was the silent type, though I learned much later they had rebelled in different forms. But somewhere along the way, I became that child who does as she is told. When my mother did not allow me to play with the neighbors’ children on our block because they were a bad influence, I accepted. I didn’t go behind her back. I didn’t rebel. I didn’t fight. That night, my brother, 12 years my senior, tried his best to understand why I hated school so much that I couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t explain to him that every morning when she started the class with mandatory prayers, I felt sick because there was no air, and the silence of the classroom, filled with a bunch of eight/nine year-old girls was too depressing. That everything we did was a test. That every answer had to be right, and if you made a mistake, you were immediately heckled by the teacher in front of everyone. Once a month we had a behavioral report card, which basically meant you would be graded based on your cleanliness, appearance, uniform, and your general attitude. I always aced those, because I was so polite and quiet. Once, I was wearing hoop earrings, they were small, but questionable nevertheless. The whole time I sat in my seat, nervous because I thought they would see my earrings and I would be in trouble. So I made the smartest move I could think of: I put on my headscarf. Since girls had separate schools from boys, we were allowed to take off our scarves in the classroom; there were no males on school property). I cried most nights of the third grade. I think my mother thought it was because Dad was gone, which was true too. But most of it was the simple fact that I couldn’t be in that classroom. The comforting thing about praying was I thought someone was actually listening. Those few moments were mine, and though they were trite, and upsetting, they were my minutes of despair. And then the worse moment was when I went to bed, dreading the next morning. Some nights, my brother read me stories. I was probably too old for stories, but they were a nice distraction. The last prayer I had, as I hid myself under the covers, was “please God let tomorrow be a better day.” tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2011://1.717 2011-10-31T01:34:03Z 2011-10-31T01:40:30Z

The night I left Tehran never ended for me. I didn’t know how to say goodbye then, and never learned 12 years later, even though I had to say goodbye many more times. After all the reunions, all the visits,...

lili The night I left Tehran never ended for me. I didn’t know how to say goodbye then, and never learned 12 years later, even though I had to say goodbye many more times. After all the reunions, all the visits, all the temporary times I spent with people I love, saying goodbye never became easy, it only became an irritable habit, a bad wound that never healed. Eventually your body dies, exhausted by the infection of the wound that never healed. Eventually, your mind needs rest. Eventually, you have to learn to say goodbye, and actually be able to let go. My fear has always been the aftermath of loss. I don't know how to cope with loss, with periods of life that end. For most people, it's easy to move on, and they almost don't have to think of it as letting go, but rather a moving forward, the next chapter. I live in chapters that don't ever really end. And so it is hard for me to live because I am always fighting with the past and the future never seems to be arriving. I am tired of goodbyes. tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2011://1.716 2011-10-31T01:23:22Z 2011-10-31T01:25:25Z

A few weeks ago my father dreamed he was walking up a hill and holding a little girl's hand. This morning, my sister announced she is having a baby girl. I spoke to my father, congratulating him on being a...

lili A few weeks ago my father dreamed he was walking up a hill and holding a little girl's hand. This morning, my sister announced she is having a baby girl. I spoke to my father, congratulating him on being a grandfather. "I knew all along, before everyone else, that I would have a granddaughter," he said proudly. Then he said something that I will never forget,"They are born, then they grow up, and then eventually have their own homes." And I thought of all the times he has had to say goodbye to his children, how many times he has had to pretend he is okay with all of our decisions, with how we've changed, with how we've grown up and no longer his little children. tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2011://1.715 2011-10-26T13:35:17Z 2011-10-26T13:38:43Z

This morning when I stepped out of the apartment, I smelled fall. It was the same smell when I was in Tehran and my mother walked me to school. It was a particular smell, somewhat sad because you knew that...

lili This morning when I stepped out of the apartment, I smelled fall. It was the same smell when I was in Tehran and my mother walked me to school. It was a particular smell, somewhat sad because you knew that winter would arrive soon, and then there was the silence of those early mornings, a certain deadness surrounding the air. The hardest part was when my mother let my hand go, and I joined the rest of the girls in terribly dark uniforms in the school's backyard. I always wanted to be a grown up even then because I couldn't bare the childhood fears, the inability to escape school grounds, the inability to express emotions and feelings in any way. I didn't yet know that growing up had its own loneliness. On my walk to the subway this morning, I called my mother and told her about the smell. She immediately said, "the smell of fall." I told her my new decisions, and she said whatever I decide is for the best. A sense of relief came over me, for I realized that even now as I stood alone, and no longer a child going to school, my mother's words still made it all better. As if she had never left, as if we were still there on those empty streets, as if nothing had changed. And yet I knew that we had both changed, and that we were much better now, much more experienced, much more free. I wished her a good day and walked down the steps underground to the subway, my lungs heavy with the smell of fall. tag:www.bluebirdescape.com,2011://1.714 2011-10-20T03:12:50Z 2011-10-20T03:16:00Z

My friends compliment my father for being sweet. Though he rarely speaks, and when he does, he is so soft-spoken it is barely recognizable, he is accepted right away as a kind man. I call his quiet demeanor the sweet...

lili My friends compliment my father for being sweet. Though he rarely speaks, and when he does, he is so soft-spoken it is barely recognizable, he is accepted right away as a kind man. I call his quiet demeanor the sweet silence. Recently, as I see him continue to lose weight on each of my trips home, I often worry that I won't see him again. He is always on my mind, as I make my way back to the city, as I trudge along New York's rainy streets, as I remind myself I am loved by him. In that sweet silence of his, I find the purest form of comfort and hope to forever remember it, this quiet loving.