3. Paralyzed

 

I feel paralyzed. The last time I felt this broken was when I got Covid. I realized then, that to even speak, I needed energy. Now I realize that to cry, I need energy. Energy that I don’t always have. My fear then was losing my life. I was mostly afraid for my daughter growing up without her mother. But I am more afraid now. Not knowing if I will ever see my parents again. If I will be able to go on without them.

This has got to be the hardest trip of my life. I feel like a hostage waiting to be forced onto a plane going to Los Angeles. My body is sitting at gate 25 at San Jose International airport. My mind is in Tehran fearing bombs. My heart is beating beside my parents, my uncles and aunts, beside the innocent people of Iran, Israel, Gaza, Ukraine and many corners of the world worried about their safety.

2. The Nightmare, The Contrast

The nightmare. I have experienced it as a dream before. But I can’t seem to wake up from this one. It still felt like maybe just a nightmare every time I woke up in the middle of the night in the past week. I open my eyes. I am still in Palo Alto. I can hear the birds chirping so early in the morning. I can hear Rouin snoring next to me. I can feel Gracie’s soft warm furry body bundled up under my arm. I am awake. I am home.  Then my kick drum heart starts pounding. The coldest sweat starts dripping down my arm. My stomach starts twitching as if I just untangled my body from a net. My throat is knotted up so tightly I feel as though it has shrunk in half.

I am terrified of my phone. It has become a torture device. It is sitting right next to me waiting to show me what horror has happened on the other side of the world, in that parallel universe that is ahead of us by half a day. A world that used to be my home as a child. A world turned upside down in just a few days. The images are unfortunately familiar. It has happened to many other homes. It has happened to many other families. The contrast has always been surreal and disturbing.

I am a teacher. The children I care for get dropped off at preschool sometimes with both parents. Their parents or nannies pack them a nutritious snack of a variety of fresh fruits and veggies. A hearty and sometimes warm lunch packed in a thermos. A tube of sunscreen for the teachers to reapply after a couple of hours. Extra sets of clothes in a bag. They come in with wings and crowns. They can choose what to play and when to play. They have so many options to choose from. So many tables setup with colorful toys, play dough, sensory bins, puzzles and art material. Each activity designed new and fresh every day to enhance or satisfy a particular skill or need. Each interaction monitored and aided if needed. So much imagination. So much curiosity. So much purity. Experiencing the wonders of the world, nature and science for the first time. Is this world real? World of bubbles and colors, ladybugs and butterflies. A garden with yellow flowers?

The images rush to my mind from the other side of the world but I swallow what tastes like guilt and helplessness for not being able to offer even the smallest fraction of this kind of care to the children that need it the most. Am I in the wrong place? Am I on the wrong side of the ocean?

Now it has hit home. The images are happening in the streets that I used to bike as a child. The fires are rising from the top of a mountain that I used to hike as a teenager. So many memories rushing to my mind and passing too quickly.

1. Resorption

It happened on a Thursday afternoon of the first week of a long awaited summer, when my biggest worry was my cat’s teeth. I opened Youtube.

I opened Youtube to maybe find ways to save Gracie’s teeth from what the vet had called the irreversible “tooth resorption”, the day before, when Taran and I took her for her first checkup. I had postponed the checkup so many times, fearing that they might find something wrong with her. The only option to relieve her from the pain would be to pull out the affected teeth.

I remember the chilling wave that had traveled through my body when she said we would have to put her under anesthesia and pull the teeth out. How eerily calm the vet looked when she said it. How terrified Gracie looked, crawled to a corner under the vet’s computer monitor, not knowing why we had brought her to this nauseatingly yellow, empty and strange room and what was going to happen to her. But isn’t there any other way, I asked, to save those teeth? Nope. There isn’t. So is she in pain right now? I asked. Yes, she said again so indifferently. She could very well be in pain, silently.

I opened YouTube, and the video popped up.   The video you would never want to see. The video you wish was made by AI. The video that would hopefully be blocked on a child’s Youtube. Usually what would pop up would be videos on diet or nutrition similar to what I had been watching before or makeup tutorials or Katseye similar to what Taran had been watching. But not this afternoon.

Multiple blasts across Tehran. Tehran. The city where I was born. Thick black smoke rising with the sun from different corners of it. I looked at the time. I wasn’t able to think straight, as my mind seemed frozen like a page on a screen waiting to reload. I opened the Clock app on my phone and it was 4:30 am in Tehran. People were asleep when the bombs hit. I have to wait. Yes, I have to wait before making one of hardest phone calls I have ever made. I suddenly felt very aware of the cold air in my mouth. How dry and difficult it felt when I swallowed the thick saliva in my mouth. My heart was beating like a kick drum, heavy and strong. My fingertips were starting to tingle as I opened BBC. I felt like the air around me was getting so constricted. My chest felt tight like a dark solitary cell in Evin prison in Tehran, the city where I grew up. The name Tehran kept repeating in my head, scratchy, as if stuck on an old scratched record. I started thinking of my daughter’s name, Taran, and how a teacher in her elementary school had once thought she was named after the city of Tehran. How bothered she is and has been by the fact no one can really pronounce her name correctly. How many other, easier or more pronounceable names she has tried on since she was 9 years old and none has really fit. 

Multiple “targets” hit in Tehran. Bombs falling right out of the sky. So many horrific scenes flashing so quickly before my eyes I could hardly recognize the difference. Could this be a nightmare?

Resorption: A process in which a substance, such as tissue, is lost by being destroyed and then absorbed by its own body. One possible cause: trauma. 

Note: In nature, an animal in pain or distress runs the risk of being chosen as prey. Therefore, animals instinctually hide pain and continue eating and acting as if nothing is wrong even though they may be experiencing significant discomfort.

Pink Twirly Flower Dress

It’s 4th of July 1987. She’s a seven year old girl in a pink short twirly flower dress with a bow tied in the back. She is thin, and tall for her age, with short black hair reaching under her ears. She is so overwhelmingly excited she keeps twirling in her mind while she actually sits impatiently on a metal bench feeling the cold bars under her bare legs, looking at her white socks with a lace trim and the fading marks of chicken pox.

She has been waiting for this moment for a year; the longest year of her life. She is waiting to see her dad at an airport in New York. She keeps running towards him in her mind. Before this moment, she was in Switzerland with her mother and brother for more than a week trying to get visas. Three train rides from Zurich to Bern. Nutella sandwiches for lunch on the train rides. There were seven blue cloth suitcases with silver masking tape around them. There was a fountain at the hotel where her brother found an ant farm and removed some stones around it and got yelled at by the angry hotel lady in French. She keeps scribbling in her notebook in what she calls cursive.

What did she leave behind? What did she pack? There is a year of memories without her father in Tehran, during a war. There are many letters. Waiting at night at a phone booth to make an international call from Tehran to Pennsylvania. Seven English workbooks that she completed to reach the eight one which is brown. The only one she packed with her. There is a photo of her dad in the back side of her pink Japanese pencil case she took to school with her all year. He was with her all along.

She is getting restless. She is not sure what life would be like in America but she knows whatever it is, it’s going to be ok because her father will be there and their family will be back together again. 

She replays running to her father to hug him in her mind over and over again, in the car ride from the airport to a hotel room, her pink dress dancing around her. She tries not to replay her father passing out from exhaustion and excitement when they reached his car in the parking lot of the airport. His eyes turning completely white, and her mother stuffing green grapes in his mouth to bring him back to consciousness. He had been driving without a stop for days. 

She looks at the fireworks lighting up the night sky and the very tall buildings passing by so quickly. There is a new life waiting for her in this awaited new big country and everything is alright now. Yes, everything is alright. 
#Fathersday 

It came in waves (a Covid memoir)

It came in waves..

crashing over my body

hitting it with thousands of needles

piercing my skin all over

numbing my limbs, my fingertips, my toes

when the life washing waves would recede 

the sharp pins would be left in me

like metals holding strong in hot lava

sweat washing over me 

the feeling of fire mixed with ice

a bittersweet reminder

that I could still feel

even when my numb limbs

couldn’t walk

or even sit

even when my cracked cold lips

couldn’t gather enough strength

to form a word, let alone talk

or even chew at times

breathing freely

came only as a luxury

tears came rolling down 

each one attempting to release

a bit of the pain and fear

the dark heavy kind that I had

never experienced before

When the waves calmed..

my body..

felt like a sack of potatoes

crushed under passing trucks

on a never ending highway

I could feel the weight of their tires

all over my neck and back

I was sinking

in a bed of quicksand

holding on to a branch 

of foggy memories and dreams

flashing before my eyes

my head..

not the usual heaviest migraine bowling ball

but a cracked open version

one that just rolls into the gutter

without hitting a single pin

feeling my pulse

like hammers on the sides of my head

numbed momentarily by the flow of

cold ice packs and wet towels

thinking, was a luxury

I didn’t have

I knew that this pain 

was one that I had to endure

for days to come

my heart..

swollen and constrained in a small chamber

beating as bold as a kick drum

as fast as a sprint runner at the finishing line

fighting with each beat

against a well known intruder

held at the gates

for more than three years

now finally breaking the gate

and entering with revenge

shattering every defensive wall built by

what I thought of as good nutrition

five vaccines

and a good lifestyle

and taking my independence

and my pride

as war souvenirs

he kept saying:

“The first day was the hardest..”

then I remember she said to me: 

“Mommy hang in there!

The day is almost over!”

I turned my neck slowly

enough to the left

to take a glance at the clock

it was only 4:15

time was as blurry

as my vision 

aside from nature

giving me another chance

my family saved me

even though some

weren’t physically present

from drowning in my own tears 

from letting go of that branch

which was much stronger

than I could have ever understood

in my lowest blood pressure

threatening to collapse me

to the ground

I thought I was invincible

that I had an invisible, protective

motherly shield

but now I know..

that shield can break into pieces

right before my eyes

and I would have to 

crawl over the floor

without my glasses

without my strength

or even hope at times

to look for

every little piece

to put it together again

in some shape or form..

..feels good to be born again.

Tomorrow comes

back and forth
just let me float
just let me in
answer my call
I just fell off my goddamn boat

tomorrow comes
our hopes might fade
tomorrow storms
our hearts might turn inside out

thoughts weaken
in the darkness of the night
they wake me
they move me
they terrify the hell out of me

what if we wake up?
what if it cracks?
what if it all shatters to the ground?

from the broken
from my fears
give rise to my sunshine
give wings to my highs

bolden and brighten
let that blinding light in
let the shadows follow but not lead
sing

Changing my point of view

your streets
filled with life
filled with colors and lights
over and under
around a ring

water
running through your veins
swaying and reflecting

your curves
filled with memories
like bubbles floating around
and disappearing

I take a ride down your lane
down your way of life
and your vitality
your imagination
and your edge

I take a breath
and your air smells like home
I take a sip of your elixir
and it fills my soul
with exotic music

I come alive with you
I walk through you
and feel your electric skin
under my dry, thirsty feet

I never left you
you never said goodbye
you evolve
you inspire
you keep your floor open all night
for every dance move
in any color and every shape

We never left you
we never said goodbye
keep sitting around
and sipping on your beer
keep cycling around
and letting the wind
dance in your hair
keep staying awake all night
and dissolving time
like only you can do

thank you
for being a part of me
and letting me be a part of you
thank you
for changing my point of view

Don't spill your hope

my head feels like a hostage
pulsing with pain
my words are tortured
my thoughts are tied up

each drawer that opens and closes
is thunder and storm
every hint of light is a flashlight
burning into my eyes

life is on hold
motherhood suffers the most
waking up free
with no pain
is a luxury and a blessing
something to celebrate
something to look forward to..

hey, strong head
don't give in
don't spill your hope
don't give up responsibility
rise and smile

play it down
this game is old
this process is overdone
no matter how many years
no matter how many times
turn it around
the pain is your hostage
seize it, question it, know it
and then free it
breathe..

I wake to your smile

I had a bad dream
I dreamt that our lego houses
were getting knocked over by strange planes
the colors were disappearing from our drawings
our free bubbles were getting stuck behind tall walls
and the beautiful butterflies in the park were losing their wings

but luckily, I wake..

I wake to your smile
what a joy to see

I wake to your embrace
sunshine in your eyes

I wake to your kindness

dancing through your hair

I wake to your peace
a true sense of life

I wake to your world
for your heart is the best reminder
of how pure
our nature can be
if only..

When you left

when you left
an old familiar knot formed again
down in my throat
and around my heart

the walls
started closing in on me

the trees
started letting go of their green leaves

I felt like a tiny fish
trapped in a small closed net
deep down in the ocean

I would walk
and my feet would feel every step

I would sit
and the chair would pull me in

I would lie down
and feel bricks
stacked on my heart
pushing down

the realization
that you were gone
and the fragility
of our bodies and our lives
kept slapping me in the face

I wanted to place you somewhere
in an old vibrant childhood memory
where you would go on laughing and laughing
but the memory kept crashing on the ground
like tiny soft flowers hitting hard concrete

the land of my childhood
now seemed worlds away
and impossible to reach

my long arms
had never felt so short

my vivid and clear vision
was now blurry and foggy

pain was there
and there might be more
much more
with deeper scars

and now
I would have to wear this scar
in my heart
not knowing how many more
there would be
and how much more
I would be able to endure.