I looked around me, at all the Iranians, who like us, had wanted to enjoy some Persian music on a Saturday night. They come to enjoy themselves, dance the night away, and maybe get close to memories of what they left behind. Whether leaving was a must or a choice, they left. When you leave a place, you don’t just leave it physically; you leave your emotions, your attachments.
I thought about the people around me. I thought about what they left behind. I thought about what we had in common. I don’t know everybody’s story, but I think we all have something in common. We left things behind. We left a part of us behind. We packed suitcases with or without reason. We made a decision to say good-bye to whatever we loved or didn’t love. We parted from someone, from something. For some of us, leaving was a risk. For some of us, leaving was the only option. Sometimes, I think to myself what it would be like if we could all live in our lands, wake up to see our own dawn, our own sky. What would it be like if we were no longer strangers, outsiders, or foreigners?