My heart became whole in Iran.
When I was 11, my mother sewed cash into the pocket of my pants and steeled herself against tears as she and my father prepared me to fly alone across the world for the summer. They didn’t have the money or the time off work, but they wanted me to know myself. So with two suitcases full of soqaty for relatives I hadn’t seen since I was two, I boarded the plane, remembering to be brave.
I don’t recall being nervous on the flights, though I was alone from Pittsburgh all the way to Shiraz. I know we stopped in Europe and Tehran, maybe switched planes, and I had one of those badges around my neck denoting unaccompanied minor. Those parts are blurry.
But here’s the scene that’s crystal clear.
The plane landed on the tarmac amid the dusty Zagros Mountains. I laid a thin white scarf over my head and hair and tied it under my chin. I moved with the group of travelers towards the doors of the airport and suddenly, I am squeezed. Suffocated among relatives pushing and shouting and crying, screaming Nawal, Nawal, Nawal. I recognize my grandparents. My big red glasses are knocked off my face in the bustle of chetoris and khoobis and vaaaay cheqad bozorg shodis. There are so many bouquets of flowers, and cousins my age, and cousins younger than me, and my great-aunts in chadors and honestly? I had never felt so adored. Click, click, click- who even took those photos?
Grateful to whoever did. All that for me? My Maman Ezzy just cried and cried.
My heart became whole in Iran.
That summer in July I turned 12, and my cousins bought me a very cool doll birthday cake. That summer I learned to dance to Andy and Kouros with my cousins. I learned my grandmother made the best albaloo polo. And I learned the courtyard behind the house where my mother grew up was the perfect place to watch my grandfather climb a small ladder to trim the fruit trees. I visited Persepolis and the tomb of the poet Hafez and fell even more deeply in love with the poetic sounds of Farsi. I wondered on repeat why my parents left this beautiful place anyway.
In my 20s, when I reported a series on everyday life in Iran for the Star-Ledger newspaper, I saw the country through an American lens. Through the lenses that needed to be sliced in various directions for Americans to understand why women had to cover their hair, what the culture of beauty was like, why intergenerational living spaces were crafted purposefully that way. I interviewed then-President Ahmadinejad (twice) and I remember my paternal grandfather wanting to frame that photo of me, flanked by the Iranian President. None of those memories really stick.
I woke up this morning with Iran on my mind. That happens sometimes and I wonder if my relatives came to me in my dreams. I could hear my grandfather’s voice over a static-y phone line telling me he’s proud of the scholarship I won. Then I start noticing.
There are pieces of Iran scattered across our Chicago home. On my bedside table, there’s a black and white image of my grandmother with my mother as a toddler, in the same courtyard where I read the Babysitter’s Club books. I walk across my grandparents’ rug, lugged across the world by multiple relatives. As I descend the stairs, I step over a doll with traditional Persian village attire that our girls love, given to us as a gift by my Khaleh Zahra. In the living room, I set my coffee mug on a handmade Persian tile that my cousin Neda scoured for at Bazar Vakil, that she passed off along with 11 other beauties like it, to my cousin Sina, who carried them to my father when he visited, who carried them onto multiple planes to eventually, get them into my hands. I move to the kitchen to pour another cup of coffee, and I see the framed vintage postcards of Shirazi art, touting new exhibits in the 60s, that my uncle Hossain collected when he was a teenager.
The artifacts we keep tell a story.
My heart became whole in Iran.
Slice of Life, Day 4
I’m trying to create a comment that is worthy of this slice. There’s craft, but it’s not the craft that I want to talk about. I want to talk about the experience, the people, the moments. I want to ask you questions, and I’m grateful for the pictures because I wanted to see the people, the tiles, the red glasses.
So much lies within the present moments. Sending you a hug.
How wonderful to have photographs from that day you can remember so clearly, and what a surprise to get to see them at the end of your beautiful writing.
Thank you for sharing this piece of your life with us!
Like Melanie, I too, want to find words that are worthy. No one owes us their story. Reading your story I feel trusted. You entrust us as readers with such an exquisite gift of yourself. Thank you for the writing and all the more for your family and the love you have allowed us to witness.
The vivid descriptions of your trip and the images you have shared with us reflect the strong place in your heart that you have for Iran.
Your parents were incredibly brave to have put you on a plane to go around the world with a couple of stops. The furthest I flew as a kid was a direct flight from EWR to FLL to see my grandparents. (Though, I flew in the days when my grandmother was allowed onto the plane to buckle my seatbelt at age six. Apparently, I told her, "you can go now," since I was so sure of myself.) I have a feeling you were a confident and wise kid!
Wow, there is so much to love about this slice, Nawal! I love the contrast between the uncertainty and blurriness before you got there and the clarity of the moments in Iran. I love the repetition of "my heart became whole" (and the phrase itself). I love the sensory details and the big-and-little things you learned. Most of all, I love your realization that "the artifacts we keep tell a story", and how much of Iran is actually with you now. Thank you for sharing this piece of your heart with us!
Beautifully crafted … I feel like Georgia would say — there’s a poem in that story. The repetition, the imagery, the word choice, the shifting pace – it all felt very poetic to me. I loved the pictures and seeing you as a child – thank you for sharing that piece of you. It will stay with me for some time.
This is storytelling at its finest, with both relatable details and those that make us open another browser tab to search for those words that we know will expand our horizons. Thank you for sharing these memories with us.
I read this blog yesterday and was left so breathless, I couldn’t craft a response worthy of its beauty. The repetition of that one line so perfectly placed amazed and awed the audience. Thank you for being a writer who shares your innermost being with us all.
This is beautiful, Nawal. You capture the past and weave it with the present, leaving me (the reader) to know you more and want to know you more and want to know myself more, too. This is the mark of sophistication. I hope you will write more like this, more that helps us all understand the meaning of home in a deeper and more beautiful way.
Speechlessly breathless I have really remained since I read this executively brilliant story telling. and I am now a just turned 65 yr. old senior citizen and thus could claim I have seen and done it all in my nearly seven decade long life. It is your surreally moving story that levitates one’s soul to a new sublimed trance, Nawal. You have certainly re-earned your maiden name: as in Ganje Gharoon, the "treasure troves" of Gharoon! Please bring them on as fragrantly nostalgic and melancholic bundles of rose, violet, tulip and pussy willow flowers we all picked and packed for our mother at one point early in our common lives…
Oh, Nawal, I was just thinking of you, so I came back to read these posts you had shared with me earlier. I was also thinking of your uncle in Bahrain who I neglected to contact before Ramadan, but I will after.
This is so beautiful: "My heart became whole in Iran." And those photos of you being adored are so very priceless! Thank you for giving us a picture in words and images of your beautiful family, artifacts, and heritage.