If I close my book and look ahead, I will see a man in a white t-shirt and dark blue jeans. To my far left I will see a young, unkempt boy of 19 or 20 in baggy jeans, a baggy shirt, messy hair, chewing an unlit cigarette. Behind the man in the white t-shirt I will see trees, houses and pretty streets that give shape to what I’m picturing in my imagination. I go back inside the book where Nafisi tells me of Iran and its tragic past, the past I never lived. I go back inside her world and forget the comfort of my own utopia, where I listen to my music, wear what I want, say what I want, read any book. In my utopia there are no forbidden desires, no walls except the ones I create for myself. There are no veiled women who reprimand me for my bare legs and arms. “They” no longer take charge of my life. But if I close this book, will I take the freedom I’ve been given for granted? Will I forget how much I’ve been given? Will I be the insatiable child that I’ve always been?

After a month of waiting at bus stops, getting on and off the 28A and B, I have formed an indirect relationship with drivers and other passengers. Some faces have become familiar and although the closest I’ve come to knowing them has been through my imagination, I feel as though I can now call them acquaintances. Acquaintances that I may never see again or may one day get to know. I will remember these faces that spoke to me through their eyes. Pairs of eyes that said so much yet revealed very little. Eyes of sadness and painful pasts, eyes that wandered dutifully but with no purpose, eyes that sparked in the sweltering sun, eyes of bewilderment and eyes of discontent. I will remember the women who carried big purses and grocery bags, the men who sat, legs apart, leaving no space for those around them, the cigarette lady who I only saw twice. I remember some of their bus stops, where they get off, murmuring thank you to the bus driver. I’m beginning to look at life the way the bus drivers do. They look at life as a series of stops, of arrivals and departures. Life is a like a moving bus, taking us through rough bumps, sharp turns, persistent stops. And the cycle never stops, in rain or in the sun, this bus keeps moving toward destinations that only its passengers recognize.

There are a few things that inspire me to write: wine, cigarettes, people, books, other writers. Writers like Nafisi, Lahiri, Nabokov, Atwood, my dear friend Sheri, my cousin Sasha, my sister. I write when I’m motivated, when I’m inspired, when I have a strong feeling about something. And if nothing comes to my head, I seek for something. I search like a madwoman who’s going through her big purse of makeup, tools, wallet, phone, other women necessities. I’m doing such a search tonight and I’m afraid there is nothing in my big purse. I have been devoured by so many imaginations and fantasies that I’ve lost track of what’s real. Once again, I write realities, although fiction is much more fun… Let me just go to bed. I’ll be inspired tomorrow.

I need reminders of that life sometimes. That life I left six years ago rather abruptly, with not a single warning or sign. N’s mother reminds me of Iran, of Persia, of home, of the grandeur that Tehran represents in my eyes. I see her natural beauty, her soft features, her kind, genuine smile, her natural light brown hair and I feel close to home. Her Iranian elegance and style reminds me that not everyone here in America, the forbidden country, the worst enemy, has turned his back on Iran. That some still remember to say salam when they learn you were born in the same land they were born in. That some don’t turn into blonds or suddenly forget how to speak their mother tongue. N’s mom, who I have no close relations with and have only met twice, is the kind of lady I admire. Simply her hello, the way she pronounces my name, adding khanoom to respectfully call me “miss”, are enough to make me proud that I am, and will always be an Iranian lady.

I found an unused cigarette two nights ago and I took it home. I keep it in sight, on my dishevelled desk, among papers and picture frames. Once in a while I take it out of its box, hold it between my fingers, look into a mirror. It scares me that I’m intrigued by a disgusting, dangerously addicting thing. It scares me that I like holding it. Holding it makes me happy. The illusion of smoking it pleases me. I play with it, sniff it and am at once disappointed. I’m curious to know the feeling of smoking despite my resentment toward it. I put it back inside the box. One day I will give in to my curiosity and I will light it.

Mahi says my inner child is dead. She says I can’t enjoy the silliness of life, the meaningless movies, the insignificant books that are not supposed to be educating. Perhaps I have involved myself with too many realities. Perhaps I have forgotten to watch a film that would simply make me laugh without any further reaction. Perhaps I have let literature consume me with all its metaphors, symbolisms, similes, oxymorons. I don’t tell Mahi that my only way of survival is my imagination. I don’t tell her that I have created a simpler, prettier world, a metaphor for happiness, a fiction that I can’t stop living in. I laugh and she amuses herself, jokingly saying that my heart is dead. I let her assume that my inner child is nonexistent. Perhaps she is right.

The couple eating next to us and their two children are Persian. The mother has the typical fake blond hair and a slightly rich accent as she announces her order to the waitress. I hear them arguing over what they should order for dinner. Should they get French fries as a side dish or pasta? Should they share a bottle of wine? Despite their varying tastes, they finally settle on French fries and instead of wine order soda. I stir my café au lait gently a couple of times. I don’t disregard its bitterness; I add sugar. But I’m still disappointed by its dullness and can no longer pretend that I like it. In my mind I imagine that I’m drinking a sweet, pleasantly tasty beverage. I imagine that I’m having the best moment of my life. I imagine that I’m not bothered by the heat and someone is ordering the food of my choice: roasted chicken with baked potatoes. I leave the last sip of the disappointing café au lait in its lonely cup and say goodbye to the owner of the restaurant. I wonder if the couple and their kids enjoyed their dinner. Or maybe the French fires were too cold.

In her book, Azar Nafisi asks readers to imagine her and her students reading Lolita in Tehran. I imagine them, listen to their stories, their pains, their lives, their chosen destinies by an authoritarian regime. I picture what Nafisi paints with her words, the color of her rug, the faces of her girls. Their Iran is different than what mine is. Theirs is colorless, stale, rigid, formidable. Mine is the memory of narrow kooches, the ones I freely hopped in, held my brother’s hands, walked in a loosely tied scarf, wore a fainted red lipstick. My Iran is the memory of women and the mass of hair they revealed from underneath their scarves. The memory of forgotten veils and pink scarves. But in the living room of Nafisi’s house, Iran is in a bad time period, trapped within a difficult, bitter array of rules, regulations. The girls expose the colors of their hair, their makeup and clothes inside this colorful living room, the only place where black and white don’t overrule the rest of the colors. They share their bitterness against the outside world, the world of forbidden fiction, forbidden tastes, forbidden colors. It is inside Nafisi’s living room that they enter the imagination of Nabokov, the fantasies of Humbert Humbert, the tragic life of little Lo, Lolita. What me and these girls share is quite simply the desperation to escape realities that trap us, the desperation to abandon the walls that keep us locked in a world of politics, officials, prison guards.

In an attempt to prolong a night that has already fallen, we rummage through M street, making our way to the Potomac River. Streets are now filled with drunken boys holding cigarettes that distract by passers. These beautiful boys are almost falling, barely keeping up with the rest of the sober crowd, the one that gave up a bottle of wine for other pleasures. I find a Marlboro pack on a bench we sit on. A single, untouched cigarette rests inside the green and white box; I decide to keep it. Once again, we find ourselves among people who seem to be in a world far from us, or maybe we are just too sober to realize that we all live in the same world. We are too sober to realize that our world is a shadow of theirs, wrapped in reality, in logic, in facts. We decide to drift away, walk away from them, let them enjoy their drinks, cigars, campaigns, their expensive boats. Let us forget about prince charming riding on a white horse. Let us forget perfect endings. Let us keep dreaming while we’re asleep; maybe then we can possess the night, the boys, the moon, the river.

I realize now, after four years of continuous posts, blogs, entries, that I have candidly shared my life with millions of strangers. It’s funny that I’m just thinking of this fact now, or maybe I just ignored it all along. I believe that becoming an open book was something I enjoyed and still enjoy. It is a way of getting attention, of being the spoiled kid I never really got to be, the one that got all the attention. I am also selfish. I have opened pieces of my life, fiction or non-fiction, fabricated or real, realistic or fictitious, for anyone to read. If that’s not a selfish act, then what is it? I feel a little powerful despite the sense of trepidation that I always portray. This sense of vulnerability has made me braver than I thought. Suddenly I have opened up in my own reality, my everyday life where I’m most often a closed book. All this writing has made me believe that being myself is not so bad, being imperfect is actually a good thing, that people pay attention when I act like myself. Just like I allowed myself to write a piece of fiction about a mother and her Lolita, two characters who were made-up simply from my imagination, I’ve allowed myself to say and not just write the things I want to say. Just as I allowed myself to reveal my deepest fears, like the fear of being a mother, a bride, a symbol of attachment, or of being alone in a city like New York, I’ve also allowed readers to see my most sacred imaginations. As most good readers know, all writers, even those who fabricate stories, have experienced or have thought about the things they write. By permitting my readers to see my imagination, I can no longer hide the real me, the one that only my faithful readers know.