Life forced me To surrender So I did

Blanket

Today I became part of the narrow stream
My freshwater silhouette
slid over the mossy
red rocks
And sticks
Down the side of the forest

As I slid down like a snake
my hands
began to grasp onto the dried leaves
and the loose dirt

My fingers pushed into the
Wet soil
And my arms stretched deep down
Into the earth
I stood as a naked tree

The winter sunlight
Shining down the hill
Darting between the trees
Touching me

I stood still
Awaiting the eventual
Green of spring

The lake pushed up against me
My hands reached out hoping to grasp
dirt
instead they pressed water
like a swimmer

I gave way
Fell in
And became the ripples that cover
The surface of the lake
Like a soft, reflecting, jelly blanket

Tennessee Winter Light

Today I walked
In the Tennessee winter
White light dove through bits of the forest
Revealing lanky neutral colored tree trunks
That stood like adolescent boys
Thin and absent,
Awaiting the maturation of spring
My footsteps stepped over
Dark horizontal shadow bars
Lining the naked forest
While a lone duck glided through the lake
Leaving only a delicate ripple behind
The path bent and turned
Leading to effervescent, jumping light
Coming off the lake from in between the trees
Blinding the eyes
As the night fell
the beaver
Dared to swim out in the open

Low Maintenance Dreaming

The silence infected
The weekend hours
decisions couldn’t be made
Only lazy
Meandering
with the mind
The winter
Quieted the day
And permitted
Only petite movements
No grand gestures
No social hours
Not even introspection
Just low maintenance
Dreaming

The Beauty that Accompanies Us

A harsh
And violent
Push
Into the most delicate
Of places
the internal tissue
of human love
reveals itself
most starkly
in the company
of its intimate partner,
human suffering

simplifying
the hours, the minutes, the days
that pass

life beckons
enforcing
its inevitable
movement
allowing beauty to replace
the pain once again

Thirty

She rested on her side, forming a small hump in the bed in flannel cloud pajamas. Outside, through the window to the right of her bed the construction in the alley way had ceased miraculously that day and the silence was as nourishing as seawater. She slept endlessly that morning, as if her body was resigning to the winter, protesting her tenacity. Her thoughts were covered by an opaque film caused the infection inside her body, unidentified and location unknown, only her utter exhaustion revealed something was awry in her physiology. She had no cough or fever as evidence, it was simply that her energy gauge showed that of a 85 year old woman.

Her moments of dulled lucidity reflected on her upcoming change of age. The last thirty years flashed before her dreary eyes like a painting, overwhelmed by emotion, the colors were dramatic and deep, reds turned into burgundy and sky blue into deep midnight, the brush strokes were wide and heavy, they stirred an observer's sentiments just from a glance. It was a life of deep solitary feeling, public and private, desperate and brave.

She knew the next thirty would be quite different from the first. She had changed her course, beginning at 29, like a photographer, she had begun to play with the control of her lens, experimenting with the amount of light she allowed into her frame of vision, forcing herself to consider new angles and new subjects. She had begun a battle, a silent hidden war with the dust on her mind, wiping it clean only to find it land again exactly where she had defeated it weeks before.

Despite this turning inside out she was proud of the first thirty years. She embodied all the joy and happiness that circumstance had endowed her and her immovable charisma still followed her wherever she went. The threat the world once posed with its anonymous and known characters, from strangers on the metro to family members at dinner, had evaporated, she no longer trembled in the streets of humanity.

Though many women dreaded the pending milestone, she found comfort in 30. It gave her a neat package with which to appreciate the past and break with it, like a sentimental letter from an old lover. Like a commencement ceremony, it was a discrete moment in time after the arduous ascent, the breath-taking summit and comfortable descent, to acknowledge the beauty, humility and feat of the mountain climb.

And it was unlike any other ritual, because it was her most conscious effort, since she turned 29 she had prepared for this generation change, regularly facing her failures, and investing in her talents. More courageously, she had embarked upon an effort that she presumed would demand years to master, the effort to allow life and human relationships to be as they are.

12th Century Church outside Yerevan

Old Cuppola

Water Heart

Cabbage Car

Cabbage Negotiations

Freezing Mountains

Floating Mt Ararat

Topkapi Gold Doors

I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's. I
will not reason and compare.. my business is to create.
::: William Blake :::

winter

the winter chill
set in
and told us
hyper people
to go slower
warmth had to come
from the inside
and preserved by
down and wool
we walked
like fluffed, plump
birds
across streets
and over bright fallen leaves
like a young death
the leaves are still vivacious
on the concrete

we crawl into heavy blankets
and sense morning light
outside our eyelids
our bodies synchronized
with the turn of
nature
resist
the routines of man
and stubbornly protest
the clock
we are slowed
by the winter
into morning contemplation

the youthful act of summer
the speed of fall
halted
and matured
by the cocoon
of winter

6 people

Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is. -William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)

Embryonic Light

thought
pushed me awake
for the seventh morning
in the embryonic
light
of 5 AM
I laid like a new born
batting my eyelashes
looking around
solving problems
that wouldn't get solved
the twilight
shined in blue over
the couch
and living room
giving the impression
that it was off-limits
this time of day
was for the light
not for the human
I was intruding
in the silence
and gentle opening
of the day
my steps were loud
my movement too rapid

go fast looking in and out of a million doors, or walk through one slowly

The lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one. The more active and swift the latter is, the further he will go astray. -Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

Mount Ararat

It was time to leave the odyssey.Walking through corridor leading to the plane I looked outside and there it was. Unbelievable, it stood there humongous, gargantuan but somehow hidden if you weren't looking for it, if you were looking down somehow distracted by your own mountains to climb or towards the next activity, the plane.

I just stood there. It was something you couldn't avoid. Even if you had seen them before, climbed them before, no matter how many you had seen before, this was remarkable. This always happens when I think I have seen it all.

I boarded the plane and lost the view. Then I forgot about it and focused on the smelly guy sitting next to me. As the plane started its way down the runway, it made a ninety degree turn and suddenly I had the view of a lifetime. I decided not to take a picture but just to watch. It was something words or a photo would fail to capture. As we increased our speed it stayed with us, or at least with me, and as we rose it only became more impressive.

You see, it floated. It was a floating mountain, Mount Ararat floated that day. You couldn't see the base, all you saw was a string, a line of clouds cutting the sky in two pieces and then a mountain top so huge and so perfect grew from that line of clouds. And as we rose it stayed floating, the bottom never revealed, no base to see, it was like god, or mother earth with her hair draped around her looking at us.

Istanbul

I feel I have come back to civilization. Poor Central Asia, I don't know why I am being so harsh this time. Last time I was there it was so magical, this time it was a hindrance. Maybe its age. Or because I miss my life, people, my friends, my world, a good sign actually...it seems I have become more stable, less of a nomad, and definitely less curious. I like my internal life maybe even more than the external one...

I finally took a shower in the stink bathroom. I just held my nose and went fast. I was afraid the steam from the shower would just accentuate the smell if I stayed in there too long.

I asked the receptionist for a wake up call but that meant she had to wake herself up first to wake me up which didn't feel very reliable. Six months ago I had a similar situation in Dushanbe and the guy overslept and I was given five minutes to get into a van full of people waiting on me to go to the airport. So last night I kept on waking up every two hours just to make sure.

Of course I also woke up exactly at 4:20, the subconscious is a powerful tool. She called as well, five minutes later. The cab pulled up as I came outside. I put the keys on the reception desk and walked to the cab. We started to drive off and I wondered had they paid him for the transfer that I paid for the night before? Suddenly the receptionist appeared, in a sleepy daze, with cash in her hand for the taxi driver.

We drove in darkness, back on that long Soviet street to the airport, the one that goes forever. Taxis zoomed passed us and I watched my driver's eyes through the rear view mirror to make sure he doesn't sleep. I pictured myself hitting his back to wake him up. We made it. There was one door the airport, like the top of the funnel everything poured in a tight spout and spilled out into the airport.

The waiting room for the Istanbul flight was mainly Europeans, swiss, brits, and a french couple. A huge American family too. I always wonder about those large American families a wholesome wife in a long skirt and hiking boots and minimum three kids...undeniably missionaries. I guess.

At the drinking hut in the waiting room we all got some tea, way overpriced at about a dollar fifty. Some Kyrgyz men in uniform took shots of some alcohol, ostensibly to wake up.

The flight had some of the most beautiful mountains I have seen. At one point midflight, we must have been over 20,000 feet in the air, snow capped mountain snuck over the clouds. At another point the sea met a desert and forming the top of a heart at the shore.

Bishkek Day Two

My bathroom smelled worse today than yesterday, which is pretty impressive. So I just ran away from it to eat the free breakfast of the hotel/lodge. The breakfast entailed beet salad, salad olvie (potato salad- the same one Russians and Iranians make), rice, yellow and white, and hard boiled eggs. I just couldn't stomach the spread after the bathroom smell so I had a bit of beet salad and ran away into the city. It felt good to be outside, there was some sunshine and the air was crisp, though the smell of things burning was ever present. Like everywhere, here people get rid of trash by burning it.

I sat in an internet cafe to look for a new hotel, at which I was unsuccessful but during that time I heard something familiar. Iranian farsi...I looked around. A girl at the cafe was speaking on her mobile. "They are everywhere" I thought to myself. I considered speaking to her but didn't. I imagined the conversation "hi you are iranian?
"yup"
"me too"
"cool."
"cool."
"bye."
"bye."

I left in search of the National History Museum, my colleague told me there was a whole floor on Lenin. As I walked I asked a man for the street I was looking for "Chui?"
"Yes Chui"
I was excited, he knew how to speak english. I asked for the museum and a cafe I was looking for. He walked with and showed me where to go. I sort of wanted to bring him with me, to translate, to explain, to guide. We said goodbye. He was kind.

The museum was a big block in the sky. It was huge with nothing around it, no trees, no stairs, just a immense square building with a little door. Lenin was not just on the second floor, Lenin was everywhere. They must have had 200 pictures of him and many of his letters in his handwriting. There were pictures of him with his politburo officials. Then there were these huge bronze murals. The murals either portrayed women, old men, children and strong young men, Russians and Kyrgyz standing unified looking out on to the horizon. Then there were murals of men and women working hard labor, things like welding, building, farming, industrial things.

Then there were war murals some lied dead while others looked like they were trudging on to victory always looking out above the observer. The emotion and detail was very propagandist, I felt like I was supposed to be believing a story but I couldn't really buy it, maybe because it was over and it was now just part of this museum. I guess it had the same immensity in meaning as maybe an Obama statue would have today...

Alongside the murals were maps showing the gradual increase of territory of the Soviet Union. And of course more Lenin. The pictures of him and his advisers looked more like a bunch of eccentric intellectuals and academics rather than scary Russian Soviets ideologues like in the pictures of Stalin's time.

I had lunch at Fatboy cafe the only english language menu I could find. Sitting behind me was an old English man and a Kyrgyz woman who barely spoke english and an Australian man and a Kyrgyz woman who didn't speak.

I then walked to the big shopping center. At one of the crafts stores a Kyrgyz woman that spoke English well asked me if I was happy about Obama. I said yes. She said "Bush kill people. Will Obama kill people?" Man that was a blunt way to talk about it.

I asked her how she felt about the US president. She said she didn't care because they have peace in Kyrgyzstan. Wow.

Then she started to explain that life was much better under the Soviet Union, because, well people had food, shelter and employment. I said what about freedom. She said we don't need freedom, freedom just talking. We don't care because we are used to not having it. We want food and job.

Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

I am now in Bishkek and I am not in a good mood. I am tired of meetings, tired of thinking, tired of having dinners, walks, flights, drives with male colleagues. My hotel smells like someone took a big shit and turned on the heater to make sure it stays in the room extra long.

But on a more grateful note Bishkek is a bit more manageable than Tajikistan, more developed, more accessible, taxis and cars are less stinky. I don't know when my nose became so sensitive. I used to smell shit all day and it didn't bother me. It must be myoverly sterilized American life.

Bishkek looks like every Soviet movie you ever saw. Dark, cold, gray sky, gray buildings and tall skinny trees. Mountains are everywhere and thats nice to see.

I have no more pages in my passport, something I just realized coming into Tajikistan. I think I have two half pages and I have no more full page visas to get, so I should be ok.

Elections in Dushanbe

We went to the US embassy yesterday morning to watch the returns. The embassy was majority and unofficially pro-Obama although apparently they can't really campaign or be partisan on the issue. There were some real elections geeks there which I was thankful for, because its impossible for me to spend the last year watching EVERY single primary and election debate and not care about county voting results (thank you new york times). So there were two televisions, one with the Russian news coverage and one with the CNN coverage via satellite. A third screen was set up with the New York time interactive map which showed us how many votes had come per state and per county and what they were voting. Indiana and North Carolina were nail biters, and Tennessee was pathetic.

When Obama finally got it, and came up for his speech the satellite television had decided it was done, and he speech was largely unintelligible. Everyone went over to the Russian translation and I was the only remaining person in front of CNN. I made out a lot of what he said but definitely will download it once I get back to high speed internet, which means until Washington.

I was so excited just to see him up there and the change phenonemon finally touched me and as I looked around at the lack of similar outward emotion on people's faces, I resigned to enjoy the moment alone. The thought of working under a democrat, pro-choice, pro-social policy, pro-diplomacy president gives me shivers...

My whole professional life has been under the republicans. I can't imagine what this will be like.

Elections

My driver this morning asked me in Tajik about the US elections. Considering how far away I feel from the US and from the West, this question surprised me. Okay maybe Spaniards, the French, or even Georgians are writing op-eds and thinking about these elections closely, but my Tajik driver?
The world really feels like it should have a vote in the American elections.

He said he likes Obama because he is young. Considering how racist this part of the world can be, I was surprised.

Dushanbe First Day

Dushanbe first day
Its quiet, still quiet, lucky and strange for a city center. Washington has quiet streets, but here, perhaps because there is only one other person staying at the guesthouse, there is a quiet of stillness, like nothing but my fingers are moving in the whole house, whole compound, whole city of Dushanbe.
The quiet can be shocking; can make one wonder if anyone else existed in the world, especially any one in the western world, because this is so far away from that. And that’s it feels. There are different rules, here, different influence, there is no American television, no European neighborhood policy, this is east, this is asia, and isolated asia too.
Last night after arriving at 4AM and waiting in a small office with 30 other internationals for my visa, I asked the driver if the time on his car clock was right, he said yes. It said 5:40. I walked into the quiet guesthouse following the groundskeeper as he lugged my bags up the stairs. I opened my freezing cold bedroom, brushed my teeth and got under the covers with all of my clothes on. As I went to sleep, I felt completed isolated. I felt that not a soul in the world knew where I was except for the driver and the groundskeeper. I laid in the silence under the covers like I was sleeping on the top of a mountain or on stranded beach in complete solitude. It could have been frightening. But I felt calm. I knew somehow, I had all I needed.
And I closed my eyes.
At exactly 12:30, I awoke, as I thought I would. Six hours is all I am allowed, or I won’t be able to sleep that night. Though my body had grown accustomed to being 9 hours different, now I add two more hours, now I am really on the other end of the earth. I can’t help but feel it, but now I am really away, whereas the south Caucasus feels very Europe like, now I am away from all of that. Unlike Tbilisi and even Yerevan, no one has bothered to learn English here although maybe in ten years the new generation will have it. In Yerevan I had internet DSL in my fancy hotel room, here, I have very slow internet and only from the main computer in the guesthouse. I am far away.
I sat today in a staff meeting of our partner office. It’s a completely Tajik managed and run office. It’s the best example of development I have seen. Young tajiks and their director, a Turkmen, are creating ideas, are developing projects, questioning management decisions, offering solutions, coming up with great ideas. As the world changes, as development money shrinks and priorities change, I am disheartened that the future development of these 10 smart people is threatened, that perhaps they can go to other organizations but at this organization they have a bit more space to create and try.
After a full day of work we go to dinner at an Indian restaurant. I walk in and the smell of oil heaters takes over my nose and I am nostalgic. Nostalgic for a whole time and place that doesn’t exist, at least for me, anymore. I smell and feel Afghanistan the most in Dushanbe.
After dinner my colleagues and I share a cab and we accidentally drop them off first at their hotels. They leave me with the cab driver. Its not the smartest decision on any of our parts, but somehow I am unworried. Some magic, the magic that always happens here, will happen again. So in Persian and Tajik my cab driver and I try to find our way to my guesthouse. I have a landmark that is unhelpful, the Telephone company building. We get close and I am trying to go on memory from when I was here in March. Nothing looks familiar, and I am worried, maybe this was as stupid as it seemed, especially since I don’t have any phone number for anyone in Dushanbe, not my colleagues, not my friends, not even the guesthouse. I have nothing.
He tells me not to worry because he hears me sighing. The streets are all dark and all the same. Then I see a park and it seems like it is on the wrong side of the road. We drive a bit and I finally understand. I know where I am. We turn around and I see the gate. I have no idea how, but we found it. I am safe. It feels like a miracle.


Being Iranian is much more helpful than being western here.

Saturday in Tbilisi

Saturday in Tbilisi
Today I followed light, or rather it eluded me, always not where I am, always shining somewhere impermanently and not on me. I walked outside and it was a nice day, the trees in Tbilisi, the trees that are everywhere, that are big and that are varied, they gave me a smile. As I walked down Rustaveli I would look up and the great pine trees made it seem like I was in some mountain forest, only to hear the loud cars and look around to see the huge cafes and shops alongside the road. Tbilisi is tricky like that, you look to your right and you see a mountain, it seems like you are on some mountain ridge, but then you realize you are in a hectic city center.
I walked down the winding huge busy street, stopping in shops we don’t have in the US, French shoppes, with a more alternative style. I walked passed couples and young people, Georgians seem to have a bit of European style, lots of black clothes, and a little bit of punk mixed in. I went up side streets when I got tired of the noise and generic feeling of the big street. Up those steep streets were the oldest buildings, and inside them people lived. Many buildings were dirty, like someone needed to come clean out the dirt in between the corners, at the joints connecting the buildings, in the entrances, around the windows, all of the places where dirt can sit, and perhaps has sat for a long time. Everything needed a high pressure wash.
I turned right onto one street chasing the elusive sun that shined on the trees at the top of the street. It looked so old and beautiful up there. But I never made it so high, I got curious and turned left right before. Walking back to Rusteveli I saw the sun in a rectangle shape on one of the dirty walls. I couldn’t stand tall enough to feel some of the sun on my face, and therefore missed it again.
Back on Rusteveli and after an hour I reached a big intersection marked by an old building that stood alone, almost separating the street high above with Parisian style architecture. Perhaps at one point it was a fancy café or restaurant, of course now it inhabits a McDonalds.
Somehow stopping at the McDonalds for a coke sounded ideal. I never eat at a McDonalds in the States, well, except for desperate situations, usually during traveling. But somehow I craved French fries and a coke. I wanted simplicity, self sufficiency, I didn’t want a waiter, or a wait. I just wanted a snack to eat wherever I wanted. And it worked. I sat outside the McDonalds in the shade and watched the light over on the other side of the city, across the bridge, where the light shined softly over a landscape of houses, and churches.
I drank my coke, poured with no ice, without me having to ask and starting walking again. I walked through the book sellers on the street and the gallery of stores on the sidewalk until I reached a large building with fountains. There a gypsy woman asked me for money and I gave her a five. As I walked on I suddenly was bombarded with begging of another girl who got on her knees and grabbed my leg unless I paid her. I tried to walk away, but her grip was too tight. I gave her my last bill of one lari and she walked away.
I went to dinner that night with a Georgian friend from grad school. It was a French restaurant, one of the three restaurants established by a Georgian chef who studied in New York. I had the best chocolate soufflé I have had in years. The center just poured onto the plate.
I liked Tbilisi because it wasn’t failing in its attempt to be modern and stylish. Maybe it is imitating trends, but they move with these trends with ease and with their own style. They own it with confidence. They are not self-conscience. It is their world and it makes me want to be in it.

Monastery outside of Yerevan

We stood at the ledge of the valley, in silence, we had agreed, that each would enjoy the view casually, individually, yet in proximity to each other. The light of the afternoon was like a lazy summerset, an innocent yellow, like the color of newborn baby’s blanket, it shined over the valley, making the changing tree leaves fluorescent against the brown hillside. Along the ridge of the mountain, the sound of water would start and stop depending on which angle of the bend we walked on.
The monastery stood at the tip of the mountain, where down below, two rivers met. It stood like a model in a perfect photograph, almost unbelievable and definitely unattainable.

Painting Lady Part Deux

Today I walked into the kitchen, more confidently, having grown accustomed to the staff, and they having grown accustomed to me. The painting lady was at the table and saw me uncover the box of chocolate covered dried apricots, figs and plums that I bought at the famous Grand Candy shop in Yerevan. Everyone started enjoying it with their afternoon coffee.

An hour later we had another celebration, a colleague had bought two fancy cakes and put them on the table. I was one of the first to enter the kitchen for the afternoon treat and she was standing by the sink. For some reason I have failed to learn hello in Armenian, only thank you, because it is the same in Iran, mersi. SO I just say “hello” with an honest smile on my face. She returns my greeting with her own sweet smile and then asks me a question. I can tell the way her face says “why” that she is asking how I fit in this world, being from the US. She wants to know where I am from, I guess and I say “Iran.”

Then a colleague comes into the kitchen and she starts translating. “where did you grow up is your family Iranian?”
“ the US, my parents are Iranian.”
“She says that no matter where someone is born, their culture, can grow inside of them and show. She says she loves Iranian culture, and history.”

Having an opportunity to look at her closely during the conversation, I see how young she is despite her gray hair and small body. Her face is very expressive. My mother once told me that the way people act in their old age reflects how happy they were in their life. The painting lady smiles as if she was always very happy.

Last night my colleague told me that she paints because her church is teaching her to paint the saints. She was a computer technician during the Soviet times.

Ecclesiastic Tyranny

Of all plagues with which mankind is cursed, ecclesiastic tyranny's the worst. -Daniel Defoe, novelist and journalist (1659?-1731)

Use your mind to move bravely in the direction of your soul.

Painting Lady

I walked into the office kitchen and the cleaning woman sat at the long dining table as she usually does, ready to clean the used tea cups and glasses of the day. As I turn on the hot water kettle; I look over to her again. I want to talk to her but I don’t speak any language she understands. She is wearing a skirt, a sweater, a smock and eye glasses with her silver hair pulled back in a small ponytail. She is very little although she walks with good posture.

As I gaze over in her direction, I am surprised by what I see. I look down to open my tea bag and look over again. She is painting. Her little fingers are dipping the brush into the red and green paints and gliding the brush over a small canvas laid flat on the kitchen table. Everything is confused. Something about her activity is quite young, while her choice to paint seemed quite mature, independent. It was as if she was not the employee but the leisurely owner. Or perhaps she fits neither of those discrete categories. Perhaps she is the image of dignity at work.

The Perfect Day

It was the perfect day. I woke at 1 PM, something I have been largely incapable of most of my life. During my sleep, I dreamt the whole time. I dreamt of my cousins. It was so nice to let myself sleep, to wake up and see the morning light shining through my room and simply ignore it. Letting the day go by without me.
And then I awoke. In some natural way. I spent the night awake, watching television, writing, reading, thinking, listening to music. My hotel room was a playground for my mind. I finally decide that 5 AM is a good time to go to sleep, and so I do.

I dress and dance to the music of fashion television. I know where I am going. I have known since before I arrived. To the market, to the market. To buy art. Vernisaj. I pass by a pomegranate juice maker man. I watch a woman wait for him to squeeze her juice. Her little girl, about 2 years old, walks around curiously, meandering, like the curls on her head. She is edible. I wonder how much the juice costs, and she gives me my answer as she puts two coins on the table.
I ask for one after she is done. I put my coins on the table. The man makes my juice, 2 and a half small pomegranates worth, and looks at me as he takes the coins. He is surprised or wondering why I do not speak to him in Armenian, like others.
I walk around lost trying to find the market. I enter in an alleyway and the smell and the plastic ceilings begin to make me feel nauseous. I feel my face go white. It feels like that night, after the fancy dinner, when I awoke at 3 AM, my face in a cold sweat my stomach like a dinosaur was trying to run through the tunnels of my intestines, not sure which way to come out, causing immense distress to me in his indecision.
Meanwhile the tiny alley way of the market is not ending, not opening into an open air place as I expected. I must turn around, I cannot handle this, I am getting claustrophobic, something I didn’t know I was capable of.
I come out of the market, grateful, thankful, for my freedom. I breathe, my stomach wants to vomit. I walk, wondering what it is I need to do. Food. No not food. It’s the juice. It was too natural.
I find the market, after asking two women and two men. I start to feel better, its open air, nobody is here, I have some peace. The air is clean today and the sun shines gently. I began to enjoy. Things I have never seen before, people’s creations. I bargain with young men, we laugh. I get a free souvenir for smiling. I buy beautiful art.

I stand with an artist in front of his art for 15 minutes. For 6 minutes we talk. He speaks french, armenian and russian, and sells in english so our conversation is not profound. He has modern still life paintings, hung by close pins on thin ropes and I like the colors and the way he gives the oil texture on the paper, because he does not paint on canvas. He uses limes, pool, and browns and it appeals to me and my love of water.

I am trying to decide if I want one and which one. I bargain him to 18 dollars but I don't know which I want. He stands next to me while I ask for silence as I stare at his paintings. There are over 40 hung before me, but I focus on four. As I picture them in my room on my wall, I realize they are a bit sad, and lonely. The choice of colors though nice, are a bit simple. I enjoyed that short relationship with his art, but I decide that I don't want to see this art everyday. I feel an obligation to buy and then quickly realize that he and I have had a nice time together, talking and enjoying his art. And so I tell him with my hands that I am not ready to buy, that I want to walk around. He is fine with it, doesn't seem annoyed one bit, and we say good bye.

Hours later, having walked through the whole market, having bought a pomegranate ring, a backgammon table, and things for my sister, I decide this perfect walk must come to an end. I go to pick up the art I bought and the guy offers his help to me "if you need anything" its hospitality. I have so many phone numbers of colleagues that offer their help should I get bored or lonely. But I am one of those people that indulges in solitude. So I turn down his offer and go my way.

I enter the hotel, the three young women receptionists always over-smile when they see me. Perhaps it is refreshing to see someone like themselves as a guest, on her own.

In the room I take out my art. I love it. I call Gayane. Make plans for tea later that night. I leave.

Artbridge café and bookstore holds me for two hours. I read, eat, write. Yerevan magazine is in English and its actually a good read. I write down nice quotes from an article about a famous Armenian writer during the Soviet times. I read about an Armenian artist who lived in Paris in the twenties and thirties, friend of Picasso who eventually returned to the Soviet Union only to be separated from his wife forever. George Micheal plays on the restaurant speakers. I feel at home. My perfect illy cappuccino makes me smile. My brain and my heart is fed.

Finally I am ready to go. The weather is dreamy. Some sort of autumn, warm enough so that I leave my coat in the hotel, cool enough so the trees are a thousand colors of yellow and green. I can’t find where I am going. It’s an art restaurant bookstore. Under the ZARA shop I see something. It is in French. I go down. It looks too restaurant. I come back up. I go back down. I open, I walk somewhere away from the tables and the people.

A boy is standing there, with others, but I don’t notice him first. I ask about the bookshop. He responds in an over-confident, French sort of way “yea, there are hundreds of bookshops.” I say, “well is there not one here?” “He says yea, it is through here.” He can see that I am still disoriented and decides to give me a tour. He has dark eyes, one perfect brow, he wears a black denim jacket, and black denim jeans, a black tie. His hair is fohawk. He starts to give me a tour, it’s a hip place, couches, dim lights and cave sort of feeling.

We end up in the bookstore and I ask for the bathroom. He introduces me to two doors: the proper entrance to the shop and the entrance to the bathroom. I say I am going to the bathroom and head towards the exit of the shop. In front of it, I stop, turn around and he says “you say you are going to the bathroom but you go to leave.” I laugh and walk to the bathroom.

I come back and we walk through the store together. He is studying pharmacology. He speaks English better than anyone I have met. He helps me pick out things for my brother in law.“ I used to work here two years ago, now I just hang out here because there is nothing else to do on a Saturday (looking at his watch) at 7PM, what am I going to do?”

At this point, I learn that my visa card is not working on the store credit card machine. He walks me outside. I ask him for the nearest HSBC. He says HSBC doesn’t work with visa cards, I say “it doesn’t work with your Armenian visa card, it will work with mine.” I don’t know how to say it in a way that isn’t patronizing but the bank is meant for foreigners. He gets it, and I don’t have to explain. We go and it works I get cash. I come outside, jump and say boisterously, “it worked.” He says “I know, I saw” with a smile on his face, in reaction to my exaggerated jubilation.
We walk back, make the purchase and I ask him if he wants to walk me to the hotel.

I like his conversation, he is clever, relaxed, and spicy. He is curious and absorbs quickly so he is able to mold into the world of foreigners. He tells me he has friends working for NGOs and development orgs and that’s why he can speak English so well. He tells me there is nothing to do in Yerevan because all the discotheques are full of men because women get a bad name if they are out. So everyone gets married.

He is from Syria, came back to Armenia to get away from the “horrible middle east.” “I have a lot of Iranian friends here. Armenian men and women are like villagers, very backwards they just got exposure to life ten years ago…” He asks me if I am going to meet some people right now. My friends are going to take me out to get tea at eight. And I want to call my boyfriend. He nods.
“Okay this my hotel.”

He looks at me, it’s a pregnant pause. I have been here before. A young eastern guy intrigued by an east meets west kind of woman. It is fun for me, because I like to push open their minds by my independent behavior. I like his company, I would like for him to walk me around town more and say abrupt things in a blunt manner, the way that he does. But it always goes in the wrong direction. But maybe this guy can stay cool, this isn’t Afghanistan after all. I tell him to come by the hotel at 7 PM on Monday night. We can go for walk, I say to myself in my head. I can buy time to see if I still want his company in two days. If I don’t, I will not show up.

We say goodbye.

History is sad

Yerevan Day Two
History is sad. Today, a colleague of mine, an Armenian with a phd in Turkish linguistics and two masters in other things philosophical, said “it’s the cost of history” as he walked me past the National Academy of Sciences back to our offices. It was one of those clusters of buildings that had been completely ignored since the fall of the Soviet Union, as opposed to the shops and empty business complexes down the street, the national academy of sciences lost more than it gained with the collapse. Who is going to invest in the humanities, social sciences and oriental studies departments of a country of 3 million?
On the inside the building looked like a war torn abandoned building. We walked in and found the going up elevator. It was a 4 feet by 4 feet long. The smell of body odor overtook my normally adaptable nose. The hallway and offices were too familiar, old and dilapidated, suitable only for abandon, but strangely inhabited and used, as if these venerable academics were proudly holding on to the last tangible asset they were given.
We went to see the head of the Oriental Studies department and though he had a large office with a secretary, compared to the store fronts of corruption down the street, he was no longer valuable in capitalism. I tried to imagine his previous world, where academics are paid for the sake of thinking and studying only, where they neither apply for grants nor take on management positions to boost their salaries, where they publish solely because they have a new concept or piece of research and not because their tenure or good name requires it. A world where people are allowed to think and publish freely, not trying to fit a political agenda, or a cause, except the improvement of humanity through knowledge. That’s where I go too far. Though these halls were adequately funded during Soviet times, they were perhaps never truly free of political bias.
I could imagine these buildings, these departments, these hallways twenty, twenty five years before. Bustling with theories, fancy suits, and big conferences of experts from all across the Soviet Union. It was an investment in knowledge for knowledge’s sake, an investment in understanding problems. Nobody cares about that in this new Armenia.
As my colleague and I walked away from the building, I ask my favorite question- how is it different pre-and post Soviet Union? He states clearly “look freedom is number one” let me say what I want, travel as I want, eat what I want, go for the job I want and I am happy. Poverty is horrible, hunger is horrible, but the lack of freedom is unbearable. The poverty, illness and death that resulted from the crash of the Soviet union, was the cost of history.
As we sit for lunch later that day, I start to like this guy. He has been through it all, it seems, and yet he has a clear head, a rational mind, and a sincere heart. He tells me about taking up cigarettes in the early nineties because it was more affordable than eating. “A cigarette and a coffee, that’s all you needed.” I ask him about what Moscow was like in the eighties while he was getting his phd. I wonder if he had any indication of what was to come. He said one day he turned on the television and he saw a man actually talking in an unrehearsed, natural way for the first time in his life and he thought “this country is going down.” That man was Gorbachev.
He explains that though his family was treated poorly by the soviets, he never wanted it to completely evaporate, because of the benefits it gave to his country. He thought a unified body of independent states would have been the best solution, but “a bunch of crooks and rogues wanted to pilfer off the goods of the country and so they separated.
Walking back, the cost of history burns in my mind. I realize I am not sad that the academics are under funded, because other academic institutions are doing quite well in Yerevan. I am sad because a whole world, a whole culture of thinking, is disappearing. It is like an endangered species, maybe we don’t care about it anymore, but it has some value independent of what humans find trendy today. This academy of sciences might one day disappear or take on a completely different culture, but today it still has the feel of soviet life and that’s hard to let go.
I suppose it is like letting go of the Iran of thirty years ago. I still look at the pictures of my parent’s Iran with nostalgia. How do you recreate a time when people had gardens in the courtyards, and time for family and money for feasts?
A time when information and money were not as important. A time when cities weren’t overcrowded, the environment was still clean, and food was cooked at every meal. A time when people used their minds instead of the media to make decisions. A time when wisdom had a chance.
Walking home
That evening a colleague offers to take me out to dinner with her husband. She astutely takes advantage of the cool autumn air and walks me through large parts of the city. As she talks to me about marrying at age 20, I notice the light. The light is different in Europe, and even further east, than it is in America. It is closer, the sky is less far away. It is sunset as we walk, but since it was a cloudy day, the light gets grayer and grayer but bright, the way rain light can be. She walks me through the parks and a pathway of outdoor cafes. It is a lovely city.
We passed a set of four ping pong table, men battling it out with tiny paddles and balls. We walk on narrow pathways that weeds and flowers have cracked. The dirt and sediment in the streets and the untrimmed hedges, trees, and grass around the streets makes walking a bit more adventurous. I miss this organic way.

Yerevan

The Soviets built long one or two lane roads from the airport to the city. On either side there is nothing except maybe street lamps. As the Russian speaking driver that usually picks me up speeds fast at the strange hours of night that I usually arrive in many of these countries, I feel like this is the closest depiction of the road to the afterlife, if there was one. A calm dark straight drive under lamp posts into nothing but more darkness, just silent driving. It is calming because there is nothing to achieve, nothing to do but sit. It is also depressingly un-optimistic, there are no blue skies, green pastures, bright sunlight like in the plains of the US, or on the long drives in Nashville.
I feel strangely secure in that car, in all of those cars, with all of those drivers that have a sign up with my organization’s name on it when I exit the airport. I don’t know them, they don’t know me, but my organization has vetted them, and they have that sort of paternalistic feeling that the men in those countries have, that sense that has largely disappeared in the West, the sense of responsibility a man has for a woman. So I feel safe with those strangers, in their cars, Ladas, bmws, Mercedes, whatever they are, as we drive at 12 AM, 3AM, 7 AM through the long street to the hotel.
I lose my sense of responsibility and drift into the scenery, into the lamps that race past us as we drive. I melt into this world, this dark world, that, despite its recent consumerism, its recent Armani and Prada store fronts, is still marked by functional soviet architecture, grays, browns, and copper, so dark it can’t be cleaned anymore, so sturdy, it can’t be destroyed. I am only supposed to arrive here, for now, I am only a passenger, my illiteracy, my inability to speak, makes me impotent, excuses me from conversation, from engaging in the world, I only have to observe. I am a bystander. And so I stand by, or sit rather, and appreciate my driver’s complicity in this.
Of course the next day is different. I must lead, I must collaborate, discuss, idealize, criticize, create. At the overpriced breakfast in the hotel, I realize how comfortable I am in the western world. The hotel restaurant is occupied by 11 people, including myself. Ten of them are men.
The night I left LA, two days before, I spent the night at a business hotel near the airport. That morning I saw salespeople riding the elevator. It was also dominated by men, but there were, peppered among them, women. Aggressive saleswomen, with blackberries, blue tooth, carry-on luggage, laptop all in tow.

I felt, two days later, in the restaurant of the hotel, that I was in an old boys club, a culture of role playing and nepotism. Though they were innocent of all my claims against them, I still didn’t like them, collectively. I remembered a time when I enjoyed molding into a group like that, the challenge of charming and then intellectually conquering a group of chauvinists. Most of the time, though, in retrospect I don’t think they were ever really conquered as much as they were charmed and amused. I won a few over, taught a few that women were as smart and capable as men, but most were simply amused, I am sure.

But now, I had no patience to either charm or conquer. I just wanted to move beyond them, I knew they existed, everywhere they existed, in the US there were millions of them, traditional men that want traditional roles for women. They are everywhere, but I had found my bubble, my niche, my market, my world and they didn’t exist there. In my world I went as far as I could based on my merit. So I thought.

Later in the bathroom

Unlike the men, I missed the bathrooms. I went to the bathroom in the office after lunch. I sat there looking at the shower, the sink, the low ceiling. I missed the culture of the bathroom. The toilets are not as big as in the US, nor as sturdy, somehow you felt you were really shitting into the ground. The sinks were smaller, the showers, smaller. It reminded me of that year in Afghanistan.

The bathroom in this world, as clichéd and as trite as it is, seemed more authentic, more realistic. A bathroom should be a very small room with a simple toilet and sink, right? It was more Marxist in a way, sure there were fancy bathrooms and less fancy bathrooms, but generally there was much less differentiation than in the US. My Marxist side comes out.

But strangely, I am less compelled towards this world than I once was. I am less curious, less drawn. Its age I suppose. And comfort feels good now. Capitalism has a new place in my heart now. Luxury feels good. And I feel isolated here, far from innovation and progress. Far from strong social programs, liberal policies, from new technologies for heating and cooling homes, from new curriculum for teaching youth and children, far from strange new foods, new ideas that make millions, far from opportunity and experimentation.

Summit

She is
An almost thirty year old woman
Traveling alone
Leading alone
Following alone
She is a woman
Walking slowly tonight
in
Republic square

She moved past her twenties
Now stands at the top
Proud

She knows
that the ascent
to the next peak
will begin soon

But for now
she enjoys the solitude,
the silence,
of the summit

A Dream

this is a flower
not an act
not something to be done
there is no end to reach
nothing to maintain
no place for initiative
nothing to plan

it grows on its own
towards the sun
and around the other things
nature nourishes it
it adapts

this is a sunset
it is to feel
the light on our skin
while our eyes are taken
by the slivers of
pink red yellow saphire violet
and turqoise

we have no other role
but to sense

this is a meal
made with thought
as an art
we can only be brave enough
to go slow enough
to put each morsel
on our tongue
to smile at every change in
flavor
to remember each bite

this is a dream
we can only allow it
to be

Sunshine

sun comes
out
the vine dries up
and cracks
falls
crippled
and small
in pieces
on to the ground

Vines

sadness and boredom
creep over me for two days
like a thin vine
working its way from my ribs
around my spine
out from my mouth
winding down to my feet
around each toe
and twirling back up my ankle
stretching across my face
until it can grow no more

Its Queen

emotions
can make
us feel
like the world
is small
and we are its
queen
sitting on top
moving it,
pushing it
in so many directions

that the responsibility
is all ours
is both oppressive
and exciting

when really
we are just but tiny
ants
walking on an
earth that revolves
around its own laws
around the sun
in a galaxy
among many

Shukrollah in Tennessee Stick

Strangers give me laughter
today

Pile

the past
is a library
full of books
falling on my
shoulders

Good Shit

we laugh
and our innocence
and wisdom
mashes into
each other

We are grown
so we like
this moment more
this is good
shit

Fall came
and pushed my face
into the smells
of the cycles
of the past
it was familiar
to be back in the same coat
same scarf
same cold
but now courage
was sitting inside
waiting to come out
and I knew it would
I just waited for when

A DAY

One should count each day a separate life. -Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (BCE 3-65 C

Turbo Me

There is a turbo me
it can make light in dark
it's speed makes water out of ice
turbo me
likes to know
everything
turbo me
needs little evidence or proof
There is a turbo me
it gives false birth
all the time
it pushes against the downstream
my turbo shoulders
are tired from going
upstream
Turbo me
won't hear you sometimes
turbo me
fights the uncertainty
there is a turbo me
that skips paragraphs
the scenery and the setting
just to read the last line
turbo me
avoids the view
can't handle the journey
turbo me
is superficial shallow
and likes speed
turbo me
goes fast
to break hard

Superiority Complex

The high ceiling, state of the art meeting room, catered with chicken salad sandwiches and coffee
a place that Americans came to ruminate about Solving the World’s Problems
hosted the Afghan woman who told of bringing the internet to illiterate woman
and women previously ensnared in the corner of their houses became “fireballs”
A woman from her neighboring country sat in the audience
Reacting audibly though eluding reprimand
the obsessive commenter found the Afghan victory and the need for a $7000 generator “cute”
Remembering my year in battle with our Pakistani generator
And losing the fight with electricity in Kabul,
fire jetted from my pupils, onto her face, contorted by opinions
Later I realized I stole her sole moment of superiority since she moved West

Mine

Its mine
This morning
The quiet light
Of early morning rain
The building
The alley way
Normally in constant
Adjustment
Is inactive
It is morning
On Swann street
Awake,
Safe and cared for
In my spaces
I hold all of it
Like delicate china
The pieces
Of me
Are ancient
And revered
Here in this sweet place
In my sacred 800 sq feet
I am sorry
This morning
No one is allowed
In
I will dance in this light
Turn in these hours
Time will pass
The silence will
too

Unlatch

unfasten
from the anticipated
journey
wisdom
incubates my heart
while I unlatch
from what was supposed to
be

Dirt

change happens
like a transition
in the weather
the unexpected sunshine
that came through the bathwater
competing with the rain light
all that was there
beneath our daily occupations
all that we sensed
if we had time
comes into reality
like the dirt that accumulates
in the corner
attention forced
to the other
to the neglected
truth
the brave
will clean it up
with their hands
the rest
will just leave it behind

Reliable

9 AM
I go downstairs
of the building
housing eight
rent-controlled
one bedroom
homes
Our little dormitory
of mid-thirty year olds
working to save the world
Tyler is awake
And thankfully has made coffee
I hand him the pack I bought
in Colombia
We sit on the couch
Facing an off TV
Its early for both of us
For a Saturday morning
We converse
I can feel his care
like the sticky
scent of rain
he is gentle
steady
serious
as he listens
I know his words
Are chosen
His thoughts are
Delicate
Attempting to separate
What is
from what I say to him
as his perfectly brewed
dark selected coffee
wakes my tongue
his attention
is neither
forced
nor polite
the light of the apartment
sits on his photos from sudan
I know he is awaiting his phone
Call from her
In Uganda
As he does every weekend
his loyalty to
the authentic
life
seeps into me
the phone rings
I will see him later

Time Later

Time later, maybe an hour
Maybe four
I awoke to the light of the moon
Surprised by my surroundings
And the arms, like soft muscle ropes
Embracing me

Silent Tears

the kind of love

that a stranger

can feel

by the silent tears

of a

widowed wife

i am not sure god wants us to be happy all the time

god doesn't necessarily

want us to be happy

my friend the stock broker 

told me over the phone

in the middle of 

700bn debate

we had our own

"I believe in the free market"

"no socialism"

but what about the

assymetry of information?

I asked him

we need regulations

"yes ok but we shouldn't go extreme"

he asked me "do you think the government

is too big?"

I think the departments are doing it right, housing,

transportation, state, justice, we need them.

We need to develop them so they can help

us transition into a new model of living

in America, a more sustainable model of living

more environmental

more economical...

but if people want to buy huge homes

and not small environmental friendly

homes

then let them

let the market decide

yes

but if the developer can buy the land

for 20% more 

then the small community is gone

yes but then thats what people want

because the market allows it

please tell me you aren't voting for McCain

well why should I vote for Obama

I told him

he said "no i don't agree with any of it"

and so you are going to vote on

abortion?

YES

I am not going to allow anyone to kill

a child

we are not allowed to kill people in the law

so why should we be able to kill babies

why can't we have the power to make those

decisions

every individual for herself

this is a contradiction of your free market ideals

yea maybe

i believe god 

has given us the ability

to do what is calm

peaceful and good for society

and for the world

and what brings us happiness

"i am not sure god wants happiness for us,

not all of the time"

really? 

and what about abstinence only?

what about with your daughter?

"i will talk to her about abstinence"

but will you talk with her about what she

is supposed to do when she has her urges 

when she is alone with her boyfriend

who she thinks loves her very much

and who she wants the attention of

and wants to be close to?

what will she do then

and if she hasn't been told about

condoms or birth control

or if those are not options

then she will just go for it

in the moment

"yea thats a good point"

Ugly

the cineplex of five small theatres

with small chairs

that swung back and forth

because the screws are a bit loose

closed

a few months ago

at the beginning of the summer

the HR associate 

told us smiling

"a CVS is coming downstairs"

I almost puked

a CVS? to replace

the rooms

where I spent my most intimate

nights in Washington?

where I sat for an hour after 

Habla Con Ella

just crying 

where I walked out of another film

too cheesy to handle?

a CVS will move into that venerable

place in my heart?

Consumer Value Stores now rebranded

as consumer, value, service

I walked passed the building

the door ajar

a construction worker standing there

and I saw their 

re-creation

renovation

the candy case

and popcorn counter

gone

pasty

glue white walls replaced

dark brown walls

walls that held you in

made you feel 

that you were entering the cave

of fantasy

hiding from the world

about to have an adventure

away from the open skies

of outside

but now it was an open

open space

of fluorescent lights

and cheap dry wall

the store front windows

previously hanging the latest

innovations in film

would soon be filled

with over-priced discount toothpaste

and cheap christmas

decorations

today I saw back inside the

movie theatre

and gazing back at me was

a vacuous white hole

soon to be filled

with damaging

preservatives

plastics

and hurried

customers

that day

across from me

blue eyes

and light hair

taught me 

new things

fingers tracing lines

in the 

broken shelled shore

before the glory of

torquoise water

he was the wise one

and i, the student,

we moved back and forth

between those

titles

equals?

perhaps

we rolled into the water

the uphill portion

seeking a rock

outside

to hold onto

the unknown

was overwhelming

we needed to talk

but what to say

do you know?

no

do i?

no

okay so we keep going?

yes...

what about those

others over there

they seem to know

they look so sure

they knew from the beginning

they declared it

why don't we

why can't we

futile comparisons 

that result in danger

we choose to sit 

in the uncertainty

its difficult

but that is the upward

portion of this

pleasant walk

entropy

the quiet hallway

a sign of change

a grand adjustment

people were confused

inside the caves 

where the organs

of feeling sit

working mates 

were let go 

in the worst of times

do-gooders

in the same predicament of those crooks

on that skinny street in

new york

friends

a strange odd family

brought together

split up by capitalism

and the order of the universe

the office was quiet today

and confused

four people less

the bustling

activity

came to 

murmurs

and whispers

commentary on decisions

management gone wrong?

just sad,

it was really just that we were

sad

She is A Woman

 

She is a woman

A woman

She took it

From you

And them

Her womanhood

She took it back

She takes it back

Every day

She takes back

Every moment

You try to have it

One day

She won’t have to

It won’t even be

Accessible to you

It will just stay with her

For now

She is fighting

To keep it

Through all of it

She is a woman

happens

Chance is always powerful.
Let your hook be always cast.
In the pool where you least expect it,
will be a fish.

~ Ovid

A Mockery of Audacious Women

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/the-mirrored-ceiling/?em

within

"The greatest joys, adventures, pleasures, and successes are not without, but within your family, within your relationship, within your bedroom, within yourself. The outside world has its virtues no doubt, and I am a big fan of them- but the best is within."

bajo

Lo que existe

15 metres 

bajo 

la superficie del agua 

es un movimiento

pequenita grande

de nostros

como las olas

de un pescadito

que emociona

el agua

yo las siento

cuando 

habia tiempo

que no hablamos

y nuestra superficie 

esta en calma

Why

If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)

Francis Bacon

"The creative process is a cocktail of instinct, skill, culture and a highly creative feverishness. It is not like a drug; it is a particular state when everything happens very quickly, a mixture of consciousness and unconsciousness, of fear and pleasure; it’s a little like making love, the physical act of love."

Afghanistan Journal

4.28.03

I woke up at 5:30 this morning. I went into the bathroom to check if there was hot water it was time for a shower. I was too exhausted to take one the night before, so I set my alarm clock for the morning because I knew I had to take a shower, I had to look nice for this day.

My bathroom tap had no hot water so I went to the next bathroom, and sure enough there was a little more than a trickle of steaming hot water. I tried to balance it with some cold, but the knobs, the whole system does not really work like that.

The roosters were crowing during my shower and I could hear the morning prayers, the house was silent.

My friend and I put on our long linen button down robe type shirts. Although we have to be conservative, we are still cute. Hers is bright red and she wraps a red and black scarf around her head. I am all black with fringe coming off my scarf. We both wear makeup and little bit of hair sneaks out the front. At 6:30 the Minister’s car will be coming for us.

Today is Independence Day for Afghanistan. The festivities are said to begin at 8 but we soon found out that Afghans have the same lag in start time that Iranians do. I asked the Minister if he could get me and my friend inside, and sure enough at 11 PM the night before, we were confirmed. The US embassy told all Americans to avoid all festivities. But we could not resist.

We arrive and there is not a woman to be seen. We go through the Palace compound with all its gates and road blocks and finally we are at festivity grounds. All around us are men in uniforms, some uniforms are similar to American army and others look like old Soviet uniforms. We arrive in land rover with tinted windows, again the false feeling of security. Eventually we park and have to get out, although we were hesitant. It seemed that not only were we the only women, we also the only people not in military garb. They take us to the women’s section and after our bags are checked we go to the front of the stands to take a seat. I am an Afghan woman to these eyes until I open my mouth. If I speak Persian I am definitely Iranian.

When I sit and look before me I am overwhelmed. There are the usual ruins all around, a little more ruined than a bombed building. These ruins look more like tourist sites of old Roman buildings, where one can rarely tell if it was they say it is. Embedded among the ruins is an immaculately kept mosque about half a mile long. The backdrop of this scene is a circle of mountains. The mosque is untouched because even in times of war, religious areas were protected. Between us and the mosque are thousand of soldiers in different uniforms, I can not tell which uniform relates to which military role.

However, the most excitement was occurring around me. A woman, dress in general’s uniform and hat comes down to sit near us. When she walks by I see so many gold medals on her uniform that she leans to one side when she walks. Her hair is pulled up into her hat but she is wearing heavy amounts of mascara and eyeliner, not denying her desire for beauty among all the hostility. She fascinates us, the whole crowd of women. Everyone stares. I wonder in what army, when and how she managed to fight with such warriors?

Soon after that comes the next show of woman. A woman dressed in Western clothes (a long black skirt) comes into the section. People to begin whispering about her. She is not wearing a scarf. There she was, a mid-fifties chic, Afghan woman at a public event with nothing but a bow in her hair. She comes before everyone and begins to complain and ask where all the women are? Why hadn’t they come? She says “there are thousands of men here and not even a hundred women”. The women do not reply, but simply say that there were not enough invitations. She stands in front of our section and begins to take pictures of us, the women in the crowd. Then she takes her seat on bench, which ends in another men’s section. As if her behavior and dress was not defiant enough, she pulls out from her purse a cigarette and begins to smoke. My friend and I watch in amazement. The woman behind us leans down and asks us if we can believe a woman would dress like that, defying Islam. She soon finds out that we are Iranian and asks about 100 intrusive questions till my friend shows her annoyance and the interrogation ends.

The mix of the general and the feminist were quite a shock for all bystanders and fascinating for me.

Then a woman begins singing a prayer over the intercom and this is quite symbolic. To hear a female voice in such a venerable event, is quite a feat. The melodic voice echoes among the mountains.

There are snipers everywhere; guns are plenty. I am comfortable with guns, they are at every party, among any crowd. Whether on the belt of a privatized American soldier or a long Kalashnikov held by an Afghan soldier-turned- bodyguard for the Minister, they are a regular part of life. The element of safety with a gun depends on the handler, and everyone here who has a gun is comfortable handling it.

After waiting for two hours, we finally see the hummers that carry the bodyguards of the president. 10 suburbans follow, they park and the president gets out and jumps on to the back of a open jeep. He stands up in the front and begins to wave. He drives in front of the crowd, and I amazed because that is quite a security risk. However, he successfully makes his circles and then joins his cabinet members.

The actual parade is actually just a show of might. Thousands of military march in huge lines and this continues for over an hour. The disabled also walk in the parade and I have never seen so many one legged people. Afghanistan has the largest numbers due to the mines.

We decide to leave and everyone notices. While sitting in the crowd we have already had the Minister come over and visit us and an army soldier offer us “whatever we need” because he realized that we are Iranian and we have come to Afghanistan to help. It seems I can never be too incognito.

There are parts of me in this woman or maybe there are parts of this woman in me. My aggressive, no bullshit ways in the Ministry amazed many. Without fear I walked in there without hejab and starting bossing around warlords, jihadis, even boys with klashnikovs. Of course it was not so Hollywood esque, but I did openly confront the men of the Ministry. I felt empowered to by the Minister. And I was driven by one goal only, to get work done, to get water to the people. If one were to view me they would think, what a strong and independent woman.

However, everything is not as it seems

I imagine these women going home. Instead of being the outspoken, agitating woman she is there, I see a woman who quietly opens the door to her house. She runs into the kitchen and puts on her apron. She goes upstairs to find the kids and ask them whether they have done their homework. They look the other direction. She tears the video game consuls out of their hands. She gets them behind their desks and they start to work. She runs downstairs and starts to cook. An hour later her husband arrives. He is round, with a nice charming smile. He kisses her first. He puts his satchel in its place in the foyer. He walks into the living room and turns on the television. He comes back into the kitchen and asks her about the kids. Then he asks her about her day. She goes into minor detail about the parade.

She asks him to go upstairs and help the kids with their homework. She knows he is tired and he probably doesn’t have the energy to honor that request. He knows she knows. He walks upstairs. He finds energy in seeing his children but he is having a hard time letting go of his day, of the exhaustion of the weight of the world on his shoulders. She feels the same.

They eat dinner together as a family. She is upset, but she doesn’t know why. She notices her husband is uncomfortable. She notices he is not present at the table. She begins to attempt to mitigate the situation. She makes jokes, the kids laugh. She makes fun at her husband, he smiles forcefully, trying to be light and fun for the kids. He is in thought.

She has disappeared from the table. Instead she sits in the minds of each one of her family member’s minds, hypersensitive to and predicting their needs with varying levels of success, worried her kids are bored or don’t like her food. She tries to distract her husband to bring him back to the table, make him laugh or feel good about them. She has disappeared from the table. Like a little fairy she is bouncing around between her family members trying to appease their present needs and desires.

That night she goes to bed. She has a slight subconscious itch. It is subconscious so she is unable to identify it accurately. The days pass through her mind, like a flash back scene from a movie. Most of it is irrelevant, even TV shows run through her mind. Then she remembers a coffee with a friend, a male language professor. He says “I don’t understand how you can be so clever in the daytime, but so clueless at night.” She disregarded the comment as indicative of his constant desire to sleep with her. But she had heard similar statements over the years, even before she got married. Something about “not getting it” when it came to relationships. She wondered what people were talking about.