The skies aren’t clear. The air is heavy. The crickets are singing. The road ahead seems far, purposeless, unfurnished, incomprehensible. Cedar Lane is dark and deluded, as if a shadow has casted over the houses and the “For Sale” signs.
I slow down as I get closer to the driveway, though I feel like driving still.
Maman is tired. She doesn’t want to go for a walk. She is too tired to think. She is not Maman. Sometimes I feel that I am losing her too, that we are moving apart, that there are too many spaces between us. Fatigue is keeping her away, keeping her down. As if we no longer are. Not like before. Not like old times. Not like when we needed each other more. Do we not need each other now? I wonder.
The house feels heavy when no one talks, when no one is ready to start another day. When we think of who is missing from us, who is miles away, whose place is still empty.
We’ve done it for years, the missing, the anger over the mistakes we’ve made, the guilt we’ve felt- Maman and Baba for moving, for leaving him. We’ve left and moved on and still hurt and think back. We haven’t changed.
A new house changes the mood, the atmosphere, the sources of pleasure, but it doesn’t change who we are, it doesn’t make us forget, it doesn’t make us guiltless. At the end of the day, Baba is still the man who quietly agrees or shakes his head and Maman is still not forgiving herself for leaving her youngest son.
At the end of the day, I wonder how I fit into their troubles and guilts, how I can be of any help, how I can be better for them and take their pain away. But every night that I go to bed, I feel that I have done nothing. And it’s disappointing, this futile existence.
Maybe I wanted this house to change us. Maybe I hoped it would be a better existence for Maman and Baba. Maybe I wanted to believe that Maman can move on and forgive herself and not have nightmares. Maybe I thought we would all be happier.
And I still believe that. I still believe we can change, when we are ready, when…
Perhaps my disappointed soul can revive too.

A writer is always on the search. Even as everyone else is busy, moving on, moving forward, a writer is thinking back, tracking time, making decisions, clarifying things, critiquing ideas, analyzing questions that everyone else has neglected to answer. A writer is never done with the job, never done with a sentence, never done with a story. Things happen as you watch; you watch as they happen. When you are sitting at a café, people watching, strangers are unfolding their lives before you. The woman who orders a hot chai has a much different story than the young girl who orders an iced vanilla latte. The man who stirs his sugar sees things that the two women waiting for their orders don’t.
Stories are happening as the day unfolds. The man who rings up my groceries at the check out asks how I am. I say I’m fine and ask him the same. He says, “fine for a Monday.” He can mean many things by this. He may be saying that for a dull Monday afternoon where nothing is expected to happen, he is doing well. Or he may mean that he is not doing great, but it’s only the beginning of the week and he is just fine for now. But what is he hoping for? How does he hope to complete his day? What do we all hope for, at the end of the day, to have felt fine, or to have gone further?
I watch as Baba dips his sweet cracker into his hot tea. I watch as the crumples sink under the liquid and reach the bottom of the glass. He brings his glass close to his mouth, takes a sip, puts the glass down, and dips another cracker. Has he had a fine day? I wonder. Will he feel fine tomorrow when he wakes up at dawn to get dressed for work? Or when he returns home, checks the mailbox and walks in to his house?
What is fine? How do you define this simple, yet vague word? How is it that we say it everyday and every time without knowing its many meanings? How is it that we say it no matter how we feel?
This is what a writer does. A writer asks and wonders and tries and attempts. And still finds it close to impossible to really answer or resolve. I still don’t know what fine means, or what I mean when I say I’m fine. I don’t know what makes Baba’s day just fine, or what makes the man at the store say he is doing fine for a Monday. But I am always going to wonder and ask because that’s what a writer does.

Stephanie’s house is one of those dream houses you see in movies with the big pool, the big garden and tennis court, the countless rooms, the various art work, the designed walls, the paintings and statutes, the sunroom, the library of books. I am introduced to Stephanie, whom they call Stess because when Becca was little, she couldn’t pronounce her grandmother’s name.
Stess is a published writer and poet, lying on her bed with beautiful soft features and pedicured, red toenails. Being a writer, she learns my name quickly and says it naturally. She has dazzling beads inside her closet; Becca is wearing one and Stess insists on her keeping them. But Becca says she doesn’t want to keep them because she likes to tell people they are her grandmother’s.
In Scarsdale, outside of this pretty palace, there are lots more dreamy houses. We pass them on our way to the train station. The streets are tiny and green, calm and sweet. The air is fresh and hot, like honey on warm toast. Becca and I take the train to Grand Central, New York and I begin another city adventure.
And like all other adventures, this one also ends. I realize, as I have before, what the city means to me, how it makes my skin jitter, how it makes me smile and laugh at the same time, how it makes me feel like it’s my very first visit, how it makes my heart rate faster, how it makes me want to jump. Every time, I get a new perspective. I get closer to my dream. I get braver and I want it all: the city, the noise, the puddles of water, the river, the boat, the earth.
Every time.

New York was refreshing. Being alone with all the commotion was rejuvenating. I got perspective again. On how I feel about my needs and my goals and my future. It’s like this: you see yourself growing old in all that mess. It’s a beautiful city. It’s always been, it always will be.
I am writing here, in Fairfax, in a room with no air-conditioner. I have had my bitter days, my angry days, my flush of honest, crude writing. But it’s stale. It’s old and hackneyed and I’m seriously running out of synonyms. I am working on a bigger project, a book…a “book”. I am making myself official. I am calling myself a writer. I’m a writer. Damn it.
It’s liquidly and disgusting, the sweat that has gathered in this room. I sit on a fake leather seat, sweating, exhausted from summer and my irrelevant ramblings, but I have a goal this time. I have a plan. I have an idea.
And the idea is that I am going to be a really good writer. But for now, I’m falling, deeper, deeper into an ocean of dreams, a chaos of desires.

The cab driver is a man from Ghana, perhaps in his late 30s. He has a round, gentle face and dark hair. He asks if I am headed to D.C. I tell him that I am actually on my way to New York. He says, like a lot of men have said to me, that I am very pretty. Very descent, he adds. I thank him. We exchange minor information- where we are from, how long we’ve been here, 18 years for him, nine for me. He is on the phone and I hear him talking about his children; he mentions his daughter. And then I get off and he wishes me a safe trip.

Hooman drives. Laila is in the back seat, holding Darya, her baby girl. My sister is next to Laila, watching Darya. Joon, you are so cute. Mikham bokhoramet. I wanna eat you. My sister is saying to Darya, who has big cheeks, blue eyes, curled lashes, and a soft skin.
It’s just us and Darya. I pretend we are driving to darya, sea. We are singing to a Persian song, for us, for Darya, and being happy. It’s nice. This kind of happiness that doesn’t have an explanation, that doesn’t need one, that is in the moment.
I pretend we are driving to see the ocean because I like the thought of waves and water and wind. I like the thought of bliss and air and sand.
But we never get to sea. We take Darya home and put her to bed. She doesn’t sleep.