I’m wondering if the skies ever end. I’m going to miss the Belgian Sky; I’ll miss the finite happiness, the nostalgia that follows. The meadows here are gorgeous; life is stilled and time is secondary. We take walks around the meadows after a day’s barbecue to digest the food and the fatigue of sitting in one place. My brother H and his wife Sara share the latest Tehran news and happenings. Sometimes their stories make us laugh, the bitter kind of laughter that hurts in the end. This is the familiar laugh that you hear after listening to a long history of painful, political upheavals, lies, betrayals, unrests and imprisonments of those who fail to abide by unwritten rules. Somehow, through the breeze and winds, we make it all the way around the wheat fields, forgetting the past we all left behind. Or maybe it’s not forgetfulness. Maybe it’s a deliberate suspension of the subconscious, a form of liberation, of giving oneself to nature.
We pass little houses behind trees, bushes and farms, on rocks and gravel. The houses bare resemblance to ones in Northern Tehran by the Caspian. The skies change from light blue, gray to lavender, the sun setting behind. Sara takes H’s hand, the two of them walk happily in a place where a walk around the meadows has no danger, no fear, no requirement. I don’t envy them, but I feel responsible for their imprisonment. I don’t envy myself; I suffered no pain of their kind, but one of loneliness and nostalgia.
Inside the house, we drink champagne, wine and beer in the kitchen, away from Baba’s eyes. We laugh, and it’s not sarcastic. I missed this laugh. We are not trying to recreate something from the past. We are not forgetting that this picture isn’t always this way. But we enjoy it because we’ve learned, through the years, how fast things go by, how easy they seem, how inevitable politics and life become. We drink to our moments together, and hope to fill time making lasting memories.
Outside, in the fields and on the road, Belgium is a pretty little country, far from Iran’s prison and America’s dreamland. Like the rest of the world, the weather is always uncertain. We look forward to sunshine, but know that rain could come at any moment. And in the end, it really doesn’t matter. For H and Sara, who come from a dry land with bitter, sweltering summers, rain is a blessing. For us, it’s just another rainy day.