In the bus, in between all the tired and bored faces of random strangers, I find Gogol, a little Indian boy, the main character of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. He sits with his mother who, unlike Gogol’s mother, is not wearing a sari. She too is pregnant. The little boy swings his legs, unaware that he is hitting his mother’s as well. I watch the two of them; they resemble a perfect picture, a perfect bond of nature, the quintessential mother and son. The mother sits with her bag of groceries between her laps, holding onto Gogol’s shoulder with one hand. This relationship that they have formed together as mother and son, a relationship so strong and secure, so intrinsic, will eventually fade once Gogol grows up. He will forget how close he was to her, how much he needed her by his side, how lost he felt without her. He will grow up, move to the city, he will find love, will learn to give things up. His mother will learn to give up the idea that Gogol and the rest of her children will be by her side forever. She will drive her own car, buy her own groceries, find her own pleasures. But that one perfect picture, the one with Gogol in her arms, will stay in a little picture frame, giving her the sense of motherhood she felt when he was still her unborn child. The sense she felt when he was hers and no one else’s.

I cried when I pictured our empty house in Tehran, the one that is now sold, the one that I revisited four years ago, unaware that it would be the last visit, the last good-bye. I cried as I pictured my aunt, sobbing, saying good-bye to my brother and his wife, the last settlers of the third floor. I cried as I remembered the summer days where we gathered together on the rooftop, eating cool watermelons, sipping tea, watching the sunset.
I picture my brother, locking the door that opened and closed a million times. He takes one last look at the empty apartment, the stain that never came off the wall, the mirror that reflected his distraught, broken face. He takes one last look at a house that he came to love, one last look at the thirty years he spent in every little corner of a house that now needs repair. One last look at the house that he became a son in, a man, a husband. He locks the door, disposing of the past that never left his memory, walks down the spotless stairs that my uncle cleans everyday, steps out in the heat of Tehran. He and Sara become renters of a new house, occupying another house, another life. The past is gone. He is free, free of every bitter memory, every sad good-bye, everything that deprived him of being a dreamer. He is free to write a book, tell the story of what happened, the story that he will now live. I hope he does.

A French diner, smoking a cigarette, flirting with the woman next to him. Casually speaking a language that makes me high, makes me forget where I am, makes me float. His words are incomprehensible to me, inexplicable, vague, blurred like a foggy window. But I find the foreignness of his tongue attractive, seductive, mysterious. I envy his power to speak so fluently, in rhythm, in balance, a perfect meld with the universe. I envy that he sits there, smoking negligently, speaking in beats, like a song that rhymes. I want to sit with him, smoke with him, listen to him speak, misunderstand, become the smoke that he puffs, evaporate. But we are far from the French man. It was a moment that passed, a moment I will never get back. He is still talking to the woman who understands him. He has dropped his cigarette, crushing it with the sole of his shoe.

Mother’s definition of happiness is the realistic kind, the simplest, the purest. We grew up learning to enjoy simple, authentic things. We learned to be thankful for the roof we slept under, the food we had, the beds we slept in each night. She lived, satisfying herself with what she had, with what was brought and given to her in the name of God. And that’s how she taught us. That life is good because we can walk and breathe and live in a world that is not necessarily kind, not necessarily giving. We admired mother’s ability to accept the good and the bad, the worst and the best, the right and the wrong. But we came to find the ideal happiness. The one that is never quite reachable, never quite achievable. We learned to want more, want the things we couldn’t have, the things we wished to have. We tell mother we are not happy but she doesn’t understand. She is still happy with the one pair of jeans she owns, the one gold ring she wears. We have grown up and America has opened our eyes to dreams, possibilities, an eternal bliss that we must somehow conquer.

Last night, an unusually wistful Friday, I was at a nearby bookstore, reading Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran. I sat on a high chair, moving my legs freely from time to time, my flip flops resting on the ground, turning my head toward the coffee stand, vacillating about getting a drink. I wore my white skirt with the small flowers and a pink tank top, exposing my bare arms, my imperfect tan from the Virginia sun. I was reading a few words at a time, carelessly, habitually, but not passionately. I was too busy creating my own fiction, the kind of fiction you only see in Hollywood, in stories that don’t have a single piece of reality, a single evidence of authenticity. I played a movie in my head, a little creation from my own imagination. But it was an unsuccessful attempt. I thought back to months ago, to Friday nights where I was tired from a long school day. Friday nights where I never had the time to escape from the facts and figures of the minutes and seconds of my life as a high school student. Friday nights that I only longed to sleep through. Last night, however, I lost track of what was real, what was right in front of me. I decided to take a chance, and I invited him to join me; I missed talking to the only teacher who ever listened when I barely said a word. I missed being his student. Maybe I have lost it completely. Maybe I no longer have a grasp of the inevitable fractions of my life that are as comprehensible and clear as Nafisi’s words.

I go through the mail, now filled with unwanted letters from various banks, store savings, sales. I used to be excited for the postman to arrive, dropping letter after letter into boxes that belonged to strangers. My father watched the clock and right about four in the afternoon he went to check the mail, taking the one gold key that opened our little mailbox. I looked forward to letters from Iran, from Sasha and my older siblings who were too far to be reached. But today, there are seldom any letters from home, seldom any letters that excite me. I throw away the unwanted, unopened envelopes, keep those with mom’s or dad’s names. None of them are addressed to me. The hour has reached 11 p.m. and the postman is far from the mail room, from the bag that contains foreign letters, meticulously written in black ink, sealed securely with tape, shielding secrets, stories, tears, smiles.

The afternoon sun comes out and we’re still asleep, disregarding breakfast, ignoring the phone that continuously rings, deliberately not paying attention to the clock that now reads 12. I am bored on this mundane Wednesday afternoon where mom and dad are enjoying a night in the streets of Belgium. I miss Belgian chocolates that never fail to bring a smile to my face. And I miss my brothers, their separate lives, the families they now have. I must do the laundry today because the laundry basket is too full, too heavy; someone has to empty it. She is off to the library and I’m here, in the living room, listening to Shania Twain, Nura’s favorite singer. I found the bottle of wine that she had hidden in one of the cabinets, among pots and pans. I might have a few sips. Or I might not.

Leila, R’s best friend, and Hooman leave their little Pennsylvania home where the Hershey chocolate factory runs, and drive to Virginia for the weekend. Leila talks of their little town that is made up of farms and cornfields and streets named Cocoa and Peanut that smell of chocolate. They share with us what they know about good wines, how much they hate going to work, and that they came to America tens years late. We show them Old town and Georgetown and they fall in love, suddenly speaking of houses they’d wish to have. We sit by the dark water, watching its vastness, stretching without end. Night has fallen and Leila and R speak of their 20s, when they were young, juvenile college students, carelessly letting time pass, doing things they now wish they could do again. Leila tells me I’m the luckiest girl, that I came here at the right age, that I can have so much, that I can be happy. She loves New York City as much as I do and tells me one day she’ll live there. She doesn’t realize that we both live the American dream, that we are both lucky, that despite age, we both can have New York.
Night ends. And we let time pass, unaware that we are a day older. Leila has the world at her fingertips. But in the midst of cornfields, farms, empty bars and cattle, she refuses to wake up and think that one day, she will have the possibility of picking a different path. She will have a million possibilities, and nothing, not even a cornfield, will get in her way.

Amid the traffic of the airport, the arrivals and departures, the yelling and screaming of children who despise long flights and trips they will never remember, I sit on a side, neither arriving nor departing, reading Lahiri’s The Namesake. A little Pakistani lady, who is guiding the travellers, asks them where they’re headed to. Brazil, Mexico, London, Hong Kong, Germany are among the list of destinations. I read from time to time in an effort to forget these foreign places, these beautiful luxuries. But I cannot forget that I’m once again a lonely watcher, one who waits impatiently for destinations of her own, for places to see, for people to meet, for planes to sit in, legs crossed, reading a book, taking short plane naps. At times I’m lost in the story of my book, intrigued by the characters and their dilemmas, by Gogol’s love affairs and his parents’ objections. I put the book aside and pointlessly, inattentively watch the rest of the passengers who wait in lines longer than our lunch lines, suddenly enjoying my little comfort zone where I’m lost in fiction, in a story that is not mine.

I look at all the different brand names and I see Budweiser, a familiar name I often see on commercials. “We should get this one; I’ve seen it on commercials.” We are ignorant of brands for such beverages, beverages that we are forbidden to talk about, forbidden to drink. The bottle of red wine that we pick is designed with flowers, too pretty for its content. Somehow the flowers and colors make this prohibited act okay. By night, the candles are lit and I propose a toast, “To a life in New York City.” I drink my first wine, sipping a frowned upon drink, an act of sin. I swallow and my throat feels hot; I suddenly feel a warmness I have never felt before. I don’t like its taste, its bitterness and I push my glass aside. But maybe I can ignore the details and simply say that it was poetic, romantic, exotic. A bottle of wine will always be a bottle of wine. It will be forbidden for some and celebrated by others. And I, I can say what I want. I can say that I look forward to exotic adventures and frivolous pleasures in the future. Maybe in New York. Maybe here. There are no rules as to where I will choose to stay; I can pick something I’ve only heard of, like picking a beer I’ve seen an ad for. I’ve chosen a forbiddent taste tonight, what will I choose tomorrow?