Family Symphony

The hum and peak of family song came from the porch as the opening and closing of drawers played while my aunt and mom disapproved behavior in the kitchen. Father and uncle disgruntled at the rulers of the homeland, the rulers of the now-land, the price of currency and the unavailability of oil, their pricey drive to work. As the conversation wanes to a silence and the boisterous television dominates the conversation, father rises. His footsteps make a familiar pattern towards his daughter’s door. He sits on the bed next to me, comforted that I am there where he hoped I would be. We didn't see each other the night before when I arrived. This morning before leaving for work he stuck his head in the door of my room, and seeing the same profile, unchanged over the last 20 years, he went on.

Sisters and cousins make bubbly chatter the dining room. Blueberry pie and Persian tea organize everyone back into a common room. The buzz of words continue, voices make a symphony as they disperse into new conservations into the different rooms of the door-less house, constructed in the mind of father 30 years before in Iran. It was a design that enhanced the orchestra of family sounds, that refused quiet quarters or closed in spaces. Private conversations were impossible, the house was communal, communal in an iranian way, where family is only defined as extended-cousins, uncles and aunts see more than friends.

The watermelon comes to the table, the conversations wander back to the long center table in the oversized kitchen, an eating silence transpired, followed by a new song of conversation. Then, in unison a female voice, a deep male voice and a mini-side conversation commence all together. They call my name. I leave my room, it is instinctual, the time alone can last only so long. The call of family, of warm company, regardless of personality, lures us. From childhood, each of us was nurtured with a heavy dose of social time; each of us was given a slight addiction to the loud sounds and smells of family.

New stories begin, a new refrain is started. Once the foods are eaten and the aggregate gossip finished, another dispersion, not a farewell but a mere dispersion, occurs onto the couch, outside, or into the annals of the kitchen. The rectangle house mixed the far noises in the kitchen with the close noises in the den. A computer opens on a cousin's lap, as an uncle and brother fit themselves on a couch. The oversized television makes noise of advertisements; its exaggerated statements are monotone in the background. The voices come to another crescendo. An elated voice breaks the rhythm with her excited rendition of a prior event to a cousin in the corner of the kitchen next to the contraption for having hot tea ready 24 hours a day.

Multiple conversational melodies, essential to the calm and peace of the family, continue. One cousin enters with a loud rendition of an Iranian pop song "esgh-e man" and finishing there because he knows no more of the song. No sound is unusual, a burst of singing is as tolerated as the monotonous television, any type of expression goes. American volley ball comes on the TV screen, the uncle starts to comment, fruit is brought to the table in front of the couch.The lunch at 1PM has become lounging at 4PM, the music will continue until 5, and they will depart. The farewell is its own song, with fits and starts, each sound has its own moment, its own beat, plans for the evening are made, hugs and kisses exchanged, the afternoon symphony ends.