I walked out of the airport into the stale, humid air of Washington, dragging my suitcase to where taxis parked. The taxi driver was a dark, middle-aged man, maybe in his early forties, who politely asked where I was coming from. I explained that I spent some time in Belgium. He asked if I were from there, and I said that I was Iranian. Something in his half a smile told me that he was from the same area. And indeed I was right. He was Afghani. It was then that we switched languages and spoke in Farsi. I was afraid of misunderstanding him since Afghans speak slightly faster and with a heavier accent. But I kept up. He spoke of Afghanistan as if it were no longer his; perhaps because it really wasn’t, for he had not seen it in more than 20 years.
“I ran away right when the Russians invaded. I haven’t seen it since. It is not possible to go back,” he said sadly.
I felt sorry for the both of us. Sorry for our bitter goodbyes, for what we left behind, for what we couldn’t hold onto.
“The mullahs, what they have done to our countries!” he said and I nodded yes.
He told me that he was an educated man with a degree in Farsi literature in Afghanistan. In America, he said, he became a taxi driver, feeding his family, his wife and two kids. This is what I’ve become here, he said.
I was sad to have ended our sweet conversation in my mother tongue, but I found myself, once again back home. I parted from the friendly hamvatan, who reminded me of Khaled Hosseini’s Kite Runner, and went inside, disappointed by the familiar smell of unfamiliarity.

Last night we sat around the table-all nine of us-and talked about the evolution of Iran’s new generation, what the teens today are deprived of, their relationship with the old generation. Sara said even those who are barely three years her junior have different interests than she does. She says they don’t talk about books or political matters, but rather what attracts them in guys, like the way a boy smokes his cigarette.
“This girl said to me once, ‘I just fell in love with the way he smoked!'”, Sara says and chuckles.
But that’s not all. The problem, according to most who talked last night, is that the new generation-at least in Iran-has no sense of value, no role model. They have no interest in the regime (we can’t blame them for that), no interest in what they learn in school (can’t blame them for that either), and no respect for their parents. Their source of information and interest for the most part is the internet, their chats, their instant text messages. This is how they communicate with each other and the rest of the world. Politics and books have become secondary (I don’t think we should generalize here), maybe even nonexistent.
And then Baba joined, demanding that the kids today are much too disrespectful of their elders, always online, chatting with their girl/boy friends, with no values.
N claimed that we can’t communicate with them because they all speak a different language. What was once taboo for his generation is no longer unspeakable for my generation. Talking about sex is not impossible anymore. Bringing your boy/girl friend into the house isn’t so unlikely.
Some of them agreed that the older generation had a cause, a revolution to fight or die for. There was value in newspapers and books and politics and art and intellectual discussions.
I wonder if the same thing isn’t partially true of America’s new generation. I was reminded of last year’s English class when our teacher demanded to know what would shock us, what would make us care or feel again. I feel that the same evolution is happening to teenagers in Iran. The world of technology is outgrowing everything else, and it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There will always be those who like to think, read and write, and there will be those who want to consume what the media and the internet feeds them. They are trapped in a country where everything is a contradiction. Even their parents are less trustworthy because they too no longer know what should matter. They’ve left a revolution of blood and secrecy and now it’s hard to teach their children. I don’t blame them. I also don’t want to use this as a way to excuse a kid’s lack of respect for his parents or his apathy and laziness.
In America we are dealing with the same thing. Last year, some of the kids believed that there is not much to care for because we have already been through a whole lot of things, an on-going war, terrorism, sniper attacks. We are not shocked because it’s become routine, it’s become the very thing that society feeds us and the media allows us to see. And as I’ve said before, it’s not like we don’t care about anything, for there is always something that we want to care for and get to. It’s that we care for different things. Maybe we’ve become a little more selfish because there’s been a shift in society’s definition of success. Maybe we care fore money more now, just like the kids in Iran, because money’s significance has increased, businesses want younger minds and no one, especially the younger generation who live off their parents’ money, wants to be poor.
I don’t know who is right or wrong, but I certainly don’t think that we don’t care about anything at all. Maybe we are not much into idealism; our goal isn’t so much saving the world and bringing change. In our reality, the world’s a bitch and demands that we become a little selfish, that we strive to be rich, with or without a degree, successful, a somebody. And whether we are in America, a country of so-called fame and happiness, or in Iran, it is important to make the most of the time we have. What we do in that time is subjective, a choice, influenced by the world around us.
Somehow we ended last night’s discussion- it was past midnight- and right before we drifted off to our sleeping locations, I said to my father, “good night older generation”, he laughed, amused.

M asks if I like America.
“The last time I saw you, you were doubtful about America,” she says genuinely.
“Was I?”
It’s been a long time since anyone’s asked me how I feel about America. Six years ago, I was still doubtful, still debating where to call home. Then, I decided, why not have two homes? Why not love both, but prefer one to the other?
“Yes. I am happy in America.”
M says that after a while, the other land becomes your home, your vatan, your land. Paris is her home now; Iran is just a hope, an image she’s been holding onto ever since she fled.
Many people fled for their lives after the revolution. They took refuge in Europe and unpacked their small belongings in hopes of survival. Some moved on, built new lives, put the past behind them. Others like M, waited. Waited for a miracle, an end to brutality, an end to dictatorship and fascism.
She is still waiting, her eyes getting weaker, older. And I wonder if she’ll ever realize that what she left behind is part of a past that none us will ever see again. No matter what you do, you can’t hide the blood, the stains on the walls. You can’t bring back the dead; you can’t free the innocents. Once you leave, you no longer feel what the people feel. You have to move on, otherwise you are wasting your time. You don’t have the right to talk about the mess that you helped create. You don’t have the right to feel pity on the ones who had to stay. You left, so stop pretending you know what’s right and what isn’t. You left, so don’t sit here with your tea and talk politics.
But that’s what all of them do. They sit, talk, their kids completely ignorant of the history of their birth place. They talk about this and that, who’s in jail, who’s out, who was hung, who went on a strike. And then they throw in a joke, laugh, and talk about how rainy and nasty it’s gotten. It makes me sick, listening to them rambling about a damn revolution that happened so long ago.

It was a night out, somewhere in Brussels. We drank and had fun. I took pictures and some came out blurry. I like blurs.

The day of Madarjoon’s funeral, everyone, except my older brother and I, left for the cemetery. I remember vaguely that my brother offered to take me to an arts museum, or something of that sort. I refused, not because I was in mourning, for I did not know such a thing, but because everyone was gone elsewhere. I don’t recall if he took me to the cemetery in the end, but I have a picture in my head, one of myself, standing by the window, looking down below to an empty kooche, feeling alienated.
A month or so later, there was a gathering for Madarjoon, an anniversary. Everyone was there. First cousins, second cousins, distant cousins, and their children. I was five, chasing a playmate in a foolish game, away from the mourners who prayed and cried in the honor of Madar. The house was filled with black chadors and scarves. There was chatter, bitterly loud and indecipherable. Someone must have been serving the guests dates as a traditional funeral sweet.
Out in the stairway, Yasaman, the annoying playmate, was replacing all the shoes, separating pairs, taking them upstairs and hiding them. I was outraged. I knew she had taken my shoe for I couldn’t find it among all the ugly black heels and sandals. I chased her up the stairs and demanded to have them back. I don’t remember what happened after that. I don’t know if I found them or if she gave them back. In either case, I went back inside to get away from her.
The last thing I remember is passing by Madar’s room. There were a few faces I recognized; among them were my sister’s and a second cousin’s. I watched them in awe for I had never seen them cry like that, sobbing in anguish. I wondered to myself if I needed to do the same, if I needed to be there like them, crying and mourning. But I couldn’t cry, and before I could think anything else, Yasaman pulled my hand for another game of chase.

I wish I could say it is pure envy, just a high extension of admiration. But I guess that would be a lie because in reality it is jealousy, though a mild case of it. If I wanted to make it sound nice, sure, I’d say I am envious of the relationship between the mother and daughter. I’d say I envy the daughter’s unique sense of existence, a quiet, calm livelihood of a woman who paints her feelings with all their complexities. I don’t like to be in denial about my weaknesses and shortcomings; I like to be honest when I write, for my writing’s sake at the least. I am jealous of what they have together and what Maman and I will never have. I am jealous that Maman and I are not that close or that we can’t talk about everything. Maman is present, there, but she is entangled by things from the past, trapped in a box that none of us can get to.
I watch them and they are not in separate worlds. She may be in her own reality, one depicted through her art, but her mother somehow attempts and sometimes succeeds in finding a way in.
What Maman and I have is special to me, but deep down I want more, not just from her, but also from myself. I want us to be more before it’s too late, before we are too distant. I want us to talk, not just talk about talking. I want us to be open. I want us to not feel the 38 years that comes between us.
Lately, all she says to me is, “you are so quiet, why?”
And I want to say, “why not?” I want to say, what could I possibly say to make you feel better, to make you feel like I am still yours?
Silence runs in my family. We hide our anger, our sadness, our pain, our wounds all in silence to spare each other from more sorrow. We push these wounds aside until they sting way beyond repair. But we are learning to open up, to spill our tears, to cry, to talk. The problem is, our mother didn’t learn to cry. She learned to hold her breath, and with it every inch of her pain.

Sara says Belgium is colorful; you see all sorts of shades, out in the open. Nothing is behind a wall. Nothing is hidden. She says that’s what she likes about Europe because unlike Iran, nothing is gray, nothing is black. She says in Iran, the culture is built within walls, the people are veiled, the soldiers watching them like Big Brother. I want to wave a magic wand, color the sky she lives under, and then free the birds. I want to keep Sara and H right here, with us, away from dust and dirt, away from Big Brother’s eyes. I want to unchain so many things.
The idealists lost their battle hoping to do exactly that. Not with a magic wand of course, but with whatever force they had. While the rest of us flew away, escaping the blood and shame, they stayed, only to be buried in anonymous territories, bereft of grave stones.
And now, we sit comfortably, with our American and European flags, wondering when things will change. We know the pain, we’ve heard the stories, but we too failed. We failed and now, together as a family after 12 years, we can only talk about it.

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.

Rain comes in many different forms here. Sometimes it’s mild, shallow, a few droplets that give you a sense of longing. Other times, it’s heavy and brutal, like the sky is about to tear. And there are a few moments in between in which it comes steadily, in a dull, constant pattern like everything else that happens on a regular basis. Even when the sun is out, casting a light on almost everything, there may be light droplets of rain.
And yet none of this is strange or depressing or mood crushing. None of this bothers me. I am in a new state, one for which I don’t have a term. We go right and left and say “c’est la vie”, that’s life. And it’s true. Life is rain and sun, politics and tea, coffee and gossip, beer and dancing. I like some of the unruliness of things here (what I say is purely subjective). I may not necessarily agree with it all, but I think the people are generally happier. I am not just saying that because there is no age limit for alcohol and cigarettes. Nor am I saying it because I happen to not have a full, fascinating, adventurous life in Virginia where I eat and sleep at my parents, hang out with a few friends and occasionally find a bottle of beer at my sister’s house. I am just observing, for the little time that I’ve spent here, and in my observation I’ve found a happy world.
Jumping to a little political side: The government takes care of its people; it’s not some politician talking, it’s the government actually making sure the people are taken care of, their health insurance covered, no one is in heavy killer debt, and the kids are having a blast without being stopped for staying out past their curfews. This isn’t about my view on capitalism vs. socialism (those two are both indefinable concepts in my opinion and I need further education to really take a side!) I don’t even know why all of a sudden politics interests me. Maybe this isn’t even politics. I like America. No, I love America. (This is not me being a nationalist all of a sudden; I don’t think I ever was). I love that we compete and want challenges and can a have a job doing practically anything. I love that I can be a great journalist if I want to or that I can have an education in some of the best universities in, probably, the world. But I also enjoy being carelessly happy. I like indulging a small cup of coffee, walking in village-like town squares where cafes and restaurants are more numerous than McDonalds. I like it, as a tourist yes, but also as a person who is still young enough to know there is still time to choose.
Or maybe, I’m just living on the wrong side of America! Maybe if I moved to a big city, or somewhere a little less workaholic-driven, somewhere with sights other than museums and cherry blossoms, then it would be happier, jollier, even with a government that runs on consuming and wasting energy. I mean fuck, pardon the French, can any place be flawless or good enough to meet the great expectations of a teenager with a spoiled mind?