noted

bienvenu

Chapter III – Train to Paris

The words still echo in my head: “Ostokhoonhaat, sedaye pooki midan” [Your bones, sound hollow].

It’s a line from the lyrics I wrote to his song. The night before, I was front row at some East-London venue singing along to it with 400 other people pulsating behind me. It was feverish.

Surreal.

But now almost sober, I’m on a 9:00 a.m. train to Paris. 

"It’s fucking happening, life, as we celebrate or lament or wait around, or stand there thinking, one croissant or two? Almond or plain? Do you have a lighter? I missed my train. Where is my cellphone? Denied application? Deterred. Delayed. Deferred . . ."

Trees flash by unpretentiously, as if waiting for a pair of eyes. I close my eyes; I can still hear them. 

I recognize my love for him. I realize it because there is a mysterious part of my brain, of my body, that is absent and/or fleeting at all times. It must be his.

I write down “I love this city. I’ll move away if it kills me […] Comfort is the death of me.”

Bienvenu a Paris.  I open my eyes.  

2+2=4

Here's why I haven't blogged lately:

" . . .  make it clear that I need to write more, to enter spaces that are void of other human connections, and speak out to myself. No amount of 140 characters, witty-sentences, blog posts, or texts, or headlines, have such a cleansing, meditative impact on me. This sincere, solid excursion of thoughts, rationale, and expressions is necessary. It is vital for my sanity, creativity, and logic..."

Chapter I -  The Airport

I’m born again on an airplane / in the airport. I wonder if my mom ever traveled on air while pregnant with me.

Can I ever go back to Iran again? I long to smell the gasoline-filled air, find the rugged men on the street, all sweaty and sleazy, sexy and beautiful…I want to get a taxi, see old friends who have either changed too much or not at all…I miss the landscapes of Tehran and the mountains in the North. I miss it all.

But here’s the thing. They may arrest reformist clerics and former presidents, and opposition leaders…They can jail directors, actors, artists, writers, and professors…They may torture and vanish activists, journalists, and students. And I mean, what’s left in a country like that? Construction workers and government employees?

Whatever it is that they’re trying to build now, is it even worth it?

But even so, you may kill the painter, but not art. You can get rid of writers and journalists, but not literature or truth. Jail students and teachers, but what about knowledge.

2 + 2 = 4. You can’t take that away.

addictions

From the pages of my journal – January 26 2011

“Strangers are meant to divide

And tensions to rise like steam from the waterfalls

Tapping consciousness into the outline of an airport

Delayed.”

[There has been a coup d’état in my brain.]

I’m sitting at Newark airport for what feels like an entire childhood. My flight has been delayed, and let’s just say that I need to be in my own bed right now.

I have overtipped and overdrank incessantly for a week now in New York City. It’s grown on me but has yet to dazzle me to the point of Nirvana. I leave that to Buenos Aires, or an Eastern European city I haven’t discovered yet.

Despite the uncomfortable seats that insist on keeping my body vertical, airports calm me down. I usually scribble down something in my notebook right before my departure, desperate to find out what I’d be writing on the plane back…

I think about all the new feelings, all the new colours I’ll notice and all the stories I’ll spot hiding on the street corners and behind frozen windows, waiting to be told. Which is why traveling is so addictive. And I’m an addict, burning my money on wine and caffeine.

The galleries were as always most exciting. A good exhibition inspires me as much as a good novel does. But I’ll write about art later.

And of course, the company: Two of my best, two of my oldest, two of my funniest friends were with me for the most part. A trip isn’t worth it without tears, and we had that too…we had alone time and dance time and beers in bed and Halva on the road and disagreements about where to go. We answered a dozen questionnaires, the kind of questions that reveal your most naked thoughts without you even noticing it.

And then I was alone again. And loved. And I always wonder what is it about love that I love and hate so much.

Finally, we’re boarding. My mascara’s all over my face, but I’ll be nice.

animals

dear diary

do
that little dance
that you do.

(o)ink