A little girl in ponytails sits across from me. Her mother has placed her hand on her little legs to make sure she doesn’t fall; the roads are too bumpy. I watch the two of them and they’re picture-perfect. I suddenly miss being held. I miss being touched by mother’s hands and I feel like a child who wants to cry for mom’s embrace. I’m suddenly weakened, vulnerable, and my eyes are watery. I have forgotten how good it feels to be held by mother, the woman who knows every detail of your face, every little speck on your arms. I have forgotten her smell, her voice, her songs.
Can I be a child, just one more time?
She is sitting there quietly and I smile. I smile at her; I haven’t forgotten how to smile.

Lolita doesn’t talk to me these days. She no longer giggles when I rub her tummy; she becomes stiff, and doesn’t want to be touched. I keep reminding myself that everything will be okay. I keep telling myself that we’re going to make it work. But my daughter is too little to know that. She is too little to know that even though her Daddy is gone, even though he doesn’t come for dinner and is no longer here to give her a good-night kiss, he still loves her.
Lolita doesn’t tell me she misses him. She stares at his photograph, the one right next to my bed, the one that used to make me fall in love with him all over again. I pad her shoulders and read for her stories that were once her favorite. I make her spaghetti, her favorite food. I kiss her before she goes to bed, after she wakes up and when she goes off to school. I hug her and take her horseback riding on Grandpa’s ranch. I do the things that I would have wanted Mama to do for me. I do the things that I always dreamed of when I was little. I tell myself I’m a good mother. I tell myself that what happened doesn’t mean I’m a bad mother. I tell myself and yet I know that her life will never be the same. She will always remember Daddy’s empty seat at the table. She will always remember her mother’s pallid face. She will always remember the smell of his shirt, the cologne that he always wore to work, the way he ate his spaghetti and the way he slept on the yellow couch. She will remember every little detail, and she will always wonder why he left, why he walked out and didn’t kiss Mommy. And I, I will know that I broke my own promise, the promise to never let my daughter see her Daddy leave.

The sun came out today and I walked to a lonely, isolated bus stop. A woman joined me in my loneliness just a couple of minutes after I came. She constantly moved her right leg, an uncontrollable habit of hers, and inhaled her cigarette like oxygen, smoke floating around her. Then, when she got tired of puffing it in and out, she threw it a foot away, on the edge of the crosswalk. I had met a living cigarette. From the corner of my eye, I could see her glancing at me, wondering why I was addicted to the music that played through my earphones. We were both addicts.
Inside the bus, where I was still lost in my own state of mind, there were many lonely people who had destinations, jobs, families, dreams even bigger than mine. But I had no destination. I could sit in my seat for hours, and I would not be late for any meetings, for any dates, for any dinners. I would be late for nothing. I wished I had a destination. I wished I had a plan, a little agenda that would break me away from my solitude, away from my languor.
I left the bus with my headphones still in my ears. And she left the bus with another cigarette. The cigarette was her only companion that day and the music was mine. I could not part from the songs that kept me moving straight ahead, to a path that was already drawn for me. And she couldn’t part from her lighter, the only one that lit her lonely mind.

I wonder how long it will take before he stops loving me, before he stops looking at me the way he always does, before his eyes no longer spark, before he stops whispering my name while we make love. How long will it take before he stops caressing me, pressing his fingertips on my lips? His love for me will die one of these days. I will be another lollipop that he will be tired of chewing. I will be a forgotten candy, unfinished, unwrapped, laying on an empty table.
He comes in, throws his keys on a table full of unpaid bills and doesn’t look at me. I sit and watch the rain, pretending I don’t know he is there. I pretend this man is not the man I used to love, that he is not the man who never had enough of me, who could never stop kissing me. But why should I pretend? Now we are just strangers. I play with the ring on my finger, the ring that was meant to map our love for eternity, the ring that is now as meaningless as an unsolved equation. I’m thinking of selling it to an antique store or handing it off to my daughter. Or maybe I’ll throw it away like another piece of garbage. I’ll let it deteriorate with the rest of our trash; I’ll let it become dust. My daughter hates me because I’ve turned into a cold, bitter mother who is too tired to read stories or sing lullabies. My daughter hates me because I don’t look at her father when he is home, because I don’t ask him to take her horseback riding or to a movie.
My husband is gone. He left yesterday before noon when the rain began. He left me standing in the rain while I got soaked. He gave me a check for the bills and placed his wedding ring in my hand. My daughter stood behind the window and watched. I remembered the day my Daddy left. It was raining and Mama was crying inside. She cried and I watched Daddy leave with his brown brief case. But I didn’t cry as I watched my husband leave. I had no tears, no regrets and no guilt. I let the ring drop from my hand as I stepped inside. I didn’t turn around to see him get into his red Chevy, the one we bought on our wedding night. That night we were both drunk. Drunk and in love. And we thought we would always stay that way. We thought we would always sit in that Chevy and drive away to foreign towns. I didn’t turn around to see him wave to my baby daughter, my Lolita, my only love. I went inside, picked her up, kissed her and told her how much I loved her. I slept alone that night after 13 years and sold my ring the next morning.

She and I share the same kind of loneliness. We share the pleasure of drinking tea in the mornings, afternoons, evenings, and right when night falls. She sits behind her laptop and reads emails; I sit behind mine and listen to overly repeated songs. We have gotten ourselves used to the walls of this house, the tea pot that sits on the kitchen counter, the couch that has no particular odor, the balcony that we sometimes escape to when we’re tired of what’s inside.
But she doesn’t like to share her clothes, her makeup or her shoes. And I don’t like to share my pains, the fantasies I create for myself, or my fears of letting go. I used to think sisters were supposed to share everything. I used to think sisters could share everything. But I see that some things cannot be shared. Even our loneliness, despite its similarity in nature, can be differentiated.

We’re trapped inside, watching the rain pour violently, vigorously. I hate it. I don’t know about Daddy; there is so much I don’t know about the man who watched me grow, who took turns feeding me, who walks around this house, hardly speaking his mind, hardly complaining, hardly arguing. I don’t know if he feels as trapped as I feel when it rains or if he is at peace. The rain keeps pouring outside, and we watch it behind the glass windows. I don’t know when it will stop.
And I don’t know my father.

The young bride throws her bouquet. I sit back, refusing to get up, refusing to pretend that I want to catch a bouquet that means nothing to me, refusing to join the other single girls who wait impatiently.
This is another wedding where I’m simply another spectator, a girl in a pink dress who wonders why she is still single, unattended, and undesired. This is another wedding where I watch a bride who at 22 already knows what she wants, who knows who’s hands she wants to hold onto forever, who knows who’s lips she wants to kiss every night, who knows everything that some of us don’t know yet.
Maybe sometimes we just have to ignore logic, ignore consequences, ignore reasons. I wonder, if we listen to our heart and our heart only, would things work out? By ignoring all the facts and figures and rationalities, would it be possible to fall in love, be in love, whether forever or temporarily?
She strides down the aisle in her white dress, thinking of no one but him. I don’t think life could be any simpler for her…

On rainy days in New York City, men sell umbrellas for five dollars on the pretty, colorful sidewalks of Manhattan. Shoppers leave the expensive stores on 5th avenue and beggars sleep near tall roofs, under the sound of thunderstorms. But the city never sleeps; the city never dies.
As I observe the city in between water droplets, I find myself enjoying the rain. I find myself happy, despite the fact that I’m stepping into many puddles of dirty water with my flip flops. I find myself liking a rain that I most often hate. Could it be that I’m immune to my usual dislikes once I’m in the city?
I bid the wet city au revoir and gather my belongings to head back to Virginia. There is only one thing on my mind: I’m coming back, even in the pouring rain…
One day, when I’m ready, when I’m over my fears and doubts, one day when the roads are clear, I’ll pack a suitcase and I’ll head to the city. If I’m still in love with it, I’ll stay. I’ll unpack and I’ll sleep under the sound of running engines and the guitar that the poor man plays on the street.
I’ll sleep while rain pours outside in a sleepless, restless city.

I like the sound of thunder; it’s intoxicating. I am writing a short note tonight, as rain begins to pour, to say that I’ll be in New York City tomorrow afternoon. I will have no access to the internet despite my deep attachment to its wonders. So I won’t be able to write how intoxicating the sound of the city is or how exhilarating it is to walk on 5th avenue. But once I get back on Monday night, I will post something about it.
Who knows, maybe this time I’ll see something new…

Amid the long traffics, the hot afternoons and the polluted streets of Tehran, my brother and his wife search for a new apartment. Soon, they will move out of a sold home. Mom is worried. Apartments are expensive and replacing an old home is far too hard. How do you recreate a home?
I’m tearing my nails and I still can’t accept the inevitability of what’s lost. What’s lost is a solid, concrete home and no matter how good of a memory I have, I won’t ever be able to revisit it. I won’t be able to trace the walls, the doors, the windows.
I can’t cry. The emptiness I feel does not require tears. The emptiness I feel requires nothing. No sadness, no melancholy, no sorrow…just emptiness, like an empty home that has no owner, like a home that has value only in dollars and cents.
Sold.