This Will Be My Playground

2012-02-15T13:51:00.002-08:00

Part of some amazing photos I read about in an essay on the medieval practice of 'reading'. Isn't it interesting that, in the second image, rather than look at Mary with the baby, the young woman is flipping through a book, with her fingers between pages?

This Tree

2012-02-14T13:20:00.005-08:00

This tree is confident, not arrogant. She trusts her strength against what comes. Holds herself high enough, but in humility. She only takes the space she needs, narrow at the base where other life must grow, but limitless in its top. Opens with elegance and grace. Doesn't bend to wind, nor curl onto itself in rain. Lets snow settle on her branches, flake by flake, because she knows that just as it came, it shall leave, drop by drop. And what makes her beautiful is what she's endured. Every scratch, every bruise- a new pattern on her base. And though her skin only thickens, she hasn't lost her vulnerability, nor her sensitivity. It only takes a scratch to expose the raw green that rests behind the thick, rough brown. Only takes a prick to feel the wet, freshness of her tears on your fingers. And yet she never drops her gaze, nor turns away. She is patient, and it is only because she is patient that she is the center of this landscape, the shelter above my head, the surface I lean against, the reflection I aim to see in the mirror.

She feeds me my breaths.

Yes, finally, I have found home.

2012-02-11T04:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the first time I casually sat on a train and rode through a landscape covered in snow. A white horse only visible because of dark eyes. Sheep grazing, rather 'digging' through to graze. Men and women, holding hands in trails parallel to tracks. Children sledding on small mounds of snow. I'm in the British Library, sitting at a desk in a beautiful room, still awed by the fact that I can order a book from 1200, put it at my desk, flip through its pages. I can't get rid of the feeling that I'm still on that train, that all I need to do is turn my head and look out of a window, past my reflection, and catch sight of a river, hardened just enough to hold a thin layer of snow. Ducks standing in places where they once swam, turned upside down and fished. A fallen tree's branches caught frozen in a creek.

So I Don't Get Too Comfortable

2012-02-09T14:43:00.001-08:00

Where are you from?
No, where are you from from?
Some president you got there, no?
How did you get here?
Your parents ran away?
No? Then why is it that you don't cover your hair?
So, which do you like better, here or there?
How is it that your English is so good?
How funny. What a strange combination. Now how is it that an Iranian girl ends up studying English literature?

2012-02-09T11:59:00.000-08:00

We were standing in one of Ici's ridiculously long lines on College Ave. It ran down the block. We stood at the trunk of the third tree from Ici's door. There was a father, holding a dog's leash in one hand and his boy's hand in the other. His daughter was swinging herself around her his legs. We'd been standing in the line for five minutes predicting the flavors. There was this moment of silence before we both turned to each other.
"We don't have to get ice cream from here."
"No, we don't."
"I mean, we could walk down the block and get ice cream from Haagan Dazs."
"Yea, it's just as good."

We left the line, both knowing quite well that we were settling for something far inferior, that no ice cream beats Ici ice cream.

I find myself in memories like these. Random memories with no significance. Yet, in those moments when I'm digging my face into my scarf so my lips don't go numb, I have a Tesco bag in one hand, and an ice cream in the other, thinking about the medieval relationship between Christians and Muslims that I find myself in some mundane moment of my past life.
I always smile.

Memory is a strange thing, turning moments of nothingness into 'moments' worth recalling.

2012-02-08T14:40:00.000-08:00

I need to leave. The pavement that marks the circular route I take to class and back is worn, and I am struggling to keep my head lifted to the tops of the buildings and the branches of the trees. The sky is beginning to drop too low, closing in on me. Maybe it's because I'm weary of this Friday when I get the mark for my paper last term and I have my first dissertation meeting. Whatever it is, the fire in me is beginning to dwindle and another weekend alone in this room will put it out. I need to leave.

Ramadan at Glacier

2011-08-10T11:10:00.000-07:00

This week marks the second week of the month of Ramadan, a month often characterized as a month of starvation. For me, this Ramadan has been far different than any other. This year Ramadan has fallen in the summer, and though the hours are long, incredibly long, I've taken a different approach to the month. For me, it isn't about what I've often been told it's about-- to feel for the hungry, to avoid temptation, to practice the "rules." For me, this month is about grounding myself, learning to really live.
We started our Ramadan at Glacier National Park. Though we didn't fast for the week,I felt the essence of Ramadan more than any other year.
Living a city-life, one is programmed to believe that man is the eternal prophet, that any message the earth has to give or any task that must be done, can be and will be done through us. We change what we please to create what we need. But, as I stood surrounded by vast snow covered mountains, on earth covered in wildflowers, only steps away from the most pristine, limpid lakes, I saw the dynamics shift before my eyes. The place of man swept down from the top to where it belonged, with the rest of wildlife.
Here we were the prey. And there were no rules we could set or plans we could make definitely.
One night we pitched a tent and made a fire. We went to sleep, and left the fire to finish the last log through the night. In the dead calm of night, just as I was falling asleep, a wind swept through the mesh of the tent. It was followed by others. In an instant the still night had been overtaken by a storm. We rushed out to pin down the tent cover and put things away. I poured water over the fire and just as I turned around the wind lifted the flames again.

Throughout the park were "Grizzly Bear" warnings. "Entering Bear Country," they read with a picture of an angry bear, jaws open, below the warning. Bear spray sold out instores across the park. We are not used to feeling our place in the food chain. But these bears with four inch nails, that were feared so much and were depicted so viciously, filled themselves with berries and fish!

I have locked certain images and scenes from this trip in my heart and in my mind. This Ramadan, I want to meditate on the still lake and the sound and image of water, stars in the sky against a backdrop of owls calling. This is my goal--to breathe every breath through this view, to understand how much of nothing and how much of everything I am, like the small, red rock rock against which the creek slides against that nudges it down to the river, to the fall, to the lake...

Ashes

2011-03-10T15:35:00.000-08:00

Yann Tiersen made "Dust Lane" after his mother's death, and so it's an album that's meant to be one that expresses the mourning of death and the joy of life. I felt like the song, Ashes captured the essence of his album. It was strange for me to come by this song again, today because this morning as I was playing a song from Explosions in the Sky for Mehdi, he asked me "Is it just music? No lyrics?" And it got me thinking about how songs without words say what they want to say. It seems that it's more difficult for these artists, because the lyrics are the emotions they put behind the instruments."Ashes," takes me right to the edge of death and then back to Spring.

This week feels like a year! Monday, I lost it emotionally while arguing with someone. I got more upset than I've ever gotten upset in my life. Nothing has ever shattered me as that argument did, the yelling, the insults. And in the end, I was much more angry at myself than I was with the man who was not even worth my time to begin with. In the heat of the argument, I saw a side of myself I had never seen before. Frankly, a side I didn't even know I had. An angry, ugly side. Actually, a lot of people saw it since (embarrassingly) this was in public. At home, when all I did was replay the night in my head for hours through the night, I realized how much energy it takes to dislike someone. It literally drains energy to be negative about someone. It takes way too much to hate. Far, far, far more than it takes to love. So the opposite of love, I suppose, is indifference.

2011-02-04T18:26:00.000-08:00

Today I went on a hike. After dragging myself up a steep hill for thirty minutes, I saw a bench surrounded by trees. As I turned to sit, I was hit with a wave of dizziness. All of the Bay Area was at my feet. Berkeley. San Francisco. Oakland.
It reminded me of a summer day in Iran. I sat with my cousin at the top of a hike, and all of Tehran was at our feet. We opened cold cans of artificial orange juice. She told me how she was in love and how he'd left.I listened, and watched an old man continue past us.

Today I realized how small I am, and how little I've seen. There's so much left for me to...

Rooted

2011-02-03T16:34:00.000-08:00

These days I feel like grapefruit flesh. Strange, perhaps, but for days it's all that comes to my mind when I think about how I'm feeling. Like my thick skin has been peeled, and the thin screen that surrounds each slice of me has been peeled, and all that's exposed of me is flaky grapefruit flesh, vulnerable. I'm not sure how I came to feel this way. I'm not sure why. I think I've been so wrapped up in my life that I've forgotten to root myself.

Facing my window, there's a home being built, almost from scratch. Since we moved here seven months ago they've been tearing down walls and rebuilding them. For some time, they had torn the roof off the backside of the house to build another story. The stairs from the first floor lead to the sky. The construction workers would walk up the stairs and onto the roof, that is now the floor of the second story. It's become one of my favorite past times, to pour myself a cup of tea and sit on my couch and watch the construction workers through my blinds. They measure wood and draw lines with pencils. They saw off segments, just enough so that the piece fits perfectly into the space they've made for it. And before they drill it to the house, they rub the surface several times as if preparing it for its new responsibilities. As I eat lunch, I watch them with sweat dripping off their faces as they all find a corner of the house covered in shade to sit in and open a can of soda or eat a sandwich. Two days ago, they built walls around the second story, and now its insides are concealed again. And half the workers are out of view. Only when they finished the walls did I notice a tree that had somehow grown right against the house, among all the construction. It's leaves reached the start of the second story. It resembled the Money Tree I have at home. The branches were covered with skinny green leaves. The day the walls were put up and the stairs no longer lead to the roof, I sipped my tea and looked at the tree. It looked happy. Every leaf in view was vibrant green. Not a single one wilted or even a faded yellow. As if it had been there all its life. Perhaps it had.

Today, there's only one worker here. It's near 5pm. He's been drilling all day. And the tree's gone. Not sure what happened. I stepped out during his lunch break and walked past the home hoping to catch sight of its leaves, only to be reassured that it's gone. And for a second I wondered, Did I imagine it there yesterday and the day before?

Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits

2011-02-01T16:09:00.000-08:00

I finished reading Isabel Allende's "House of the Spirits" this morning. It took me much longer to read than I expected, considering I love Isabel Allende's writing. This was her first novel, and after reading some of her other novels, one can tell. The first half of the book is a bit slow. The characters do not develop as quickly and as powerfully as they do in her later works, and she seems to have really nailed how to switch between characters and move between time periods in her later novels. But it was really interesting to read this book and see how she's grown as a writer. I consider her one of my favorite authors. I love her "Portrait in Sepia." She's the only writer who can really get me hooked emotionally into a book, in such a way that I feel furious when her characters are angry and in love when her characters are passionate.

There is a particular paragraph from the book I found compelling:

She tried to explain Miguel's point of view: that it was not possible to keep waiting for the slow passage of history, the laborious process of educating and organizing the people, because the world was moving ahead by leaps and bounds and they were being left behind; and that radical change is never brought about willingly and without violence. History confirmed this. The argument went on and on and they became locked in a confused rhetorical exchange that left them exhausted, each accusing the other of being more stubborn than a mule. But in the end they kissed each other good night and both were left with the feeling that the other was an extraordinary human being.

The most admirable skill she has as a writer is that she can evoke such powerful emotion without every getting sentimental or poetic. Her images and the way she pushes a tone into her words creates the emotion.

The second half of the book is amazing! As she tells the story of the Communist movement in Chile and the dictatorship it faced, I couldn't help but notice how the political censorship, political prisoners, confessions, and even the conversations the young revolutionaries had in the book were mirror images of those currently in Iran.

Some of What I've Learned Starting Adulthood

2011-01-28T12:34:00.000-08:00

Now that I have officially submitted my final grad school application and gotten over my typical post-long-term-project-of-any-sort-cold I have decided to make a list of a few things that I have learned, things I'd like to remember, and things I have realized at Berkeley as an undergraduate. Of course, I'll forget to add a ton of stuff onto this list, but for now the following:

1) NEVER buy anything but tea from South Side coffee shops, unless the only thing you value from coffee and espresso drinks is the caffeine. Any drink made in less than thirty seconds is probably not very good unless it's hot water and a tea bag.

2) Those people who you see around campus, who reply "how's it going?" with "I'm so busy. I have no time for anything. So much school work. I'm so busy," no matter what time of the year it is probably spend more time wasting time than they do school work. Honestly, if people study as much as they actually say they study we'd all be serious geniuses.

3) There are beautiful blackberry bushes in front of VLSB behind the willow tree. They're delicious and most people don't even know they exist.

4) How to learn as much as you can from a textbook without reading all of it or even most of it. In other words, BS my way through reading and discussion, though this is a skill that takes practice and cannot be learned through a blog.

5) The homeless in Berkeley are incredibly smart. My favorite: the man with the shopping cart, from which a solar panel sticks out, charging his laptop (?) that is playing incredibly loud techno music.

6) Second-hand clothing stores are amazing!!!! Favorite: CrossRoads Trading Co.

7) Squelch is only funny the first and maybe second year at Cal. Then the fact that the only humor they can sum up is vulgar and sex-related becomes boring.

8) I wrote this in my journal at my first semester at Cal, so I guess it's only fair I add it here: They no longer have "school dances" in College. It was pretty new for me then.

9) The trees that line the entrance of the University are engineered so that they are in full bloom during the Spring, but in the fall when they're leaves fall, they are meant to look like roots sticking up out of the ground. As if they're heads in full bloom are underground. I'll miss them.

10) Don't bother putting up flyers on Sproul. They'll be covered within a few hours.

11) I'll miss the Eucalyptus Grove.

There is one thing that I realized at Berkeley that I think has changed me, possibly one of the major things that transitioned me into the realities of adulthood. We grow up learning about the Civil Rights Movements, Slavery, the Holocaust, Apartheid and we think, "How could people have supported that?" And I know at least for me, that was always a genuine question. It seemed absurd, beyond comprehension. "How we could we have supported injustice to this degree." But after being involved in the SJP's movement to Divest UCB from Israel and the long debates and protests that occupied the weeks leading up to the final vote, I've learned how it's possible.

Because the same type of people who can sit through seven hours of stories about the oppression facing the Palestinian people and children, who can hear first-hand accounts, who can see with their own eyes on video innocent children and people being massacred and then argue against divestment are the same type of people who could see Black people and Jewish people being dehumanized and remain silent, refusing to fight against the oppression. People are afraid. And the emotions, politics and power struggles involved complicate the injustice. It takes bravery and courage to fight against what those in power say. Perhaps now it is obvious to us, unquestionable that Blacks deserved the right to equality, but in its time it was a "complicated issue." Perhaps now the question of whether we should take out a university's money from purchasing bombs and fighter planes that massacre civilians is a "complicated issue," but years from now we'll look back and wonder, "How could people have supported that?"

Revisiting my Blog

2011-01-13T00:08:00.000-08:00

I suppose I would like to write in here more often. I've been thinking about the point of writing in here versus writing in a journal versus merely thinking about my thoughts. I haven't come to any firm or convincing solutions yet. When I read other people's blogs I find it fascinating that I can see their views on the world. It's like that moment when you're reading a book and you've gotten to a scene that takes your breath away and you forget where you are, who you are, what time it is and you're in awe. Complete awe that this is how another person sees the situation, the world. That's the beauty of writing. It's so intimate. It's the transfer of my thoughts to the page; it's the closest one will ever get to me. So it's been difficult for me to convince myself to write more often and more personally.

But then again, isn't that why there are 6.8 billions of people on the earth rather than 1, myself or yourself? So that we can create those moments for one another? Perhaps at some point in my writing someday, one person will feel that intimate connection with me through words even if it is for a fleeting moment.

Joyas Valadores by Brian Doyle

2010-09-02T12:43:00.001-07:00

Beautiful!

An excerpt from "Joyas Valadores" by Brian Doyle.

Mammals and birds have hearts with four chambers. Reptiles and turtles have hearts with three chambers. Fish have hearts with two chambers. Insects and mollusks have hearts with one chamber. Worms have hearts with one chamber, although they may have as many as eleven single-chambered hearts. Unicellular bacteria have no hearts at all; but even they have fluid eternally in motion, washing from one side of the cell to the other, swirling and whirling. No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside.
So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment. We are utterly open with no one, in the end -- not mother and father, not wife or husband, not lover, not child, not friend. We open windows to each but we live alone in the house of the heart. Perhaps we must. Perhaps we could not bear to be so naked, for fear of a constantly harrowed heart. When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a
woman's second glance, a child's apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother's papery ancient hand in a thicket of your hair, the memory of your father's voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children.

Aging

2010-01-24T15:06:00.001-08:00

Last night I had the privilege of seeing a ninety-three year old man. While visiting our family friends, his son and daughter-in-law, he was out of sight, in his room watching TV and reading. At one point, he appeared at the living room doorway holding onto the edges with his weak, bony fingers. Ontop of his pajamas he wore a navy suit jacket. It must have fit him in his earlier days. Now the seams of his shoulders rested on his arm, halfway down to his elbows. He lowered his head and said hello as we rushed over to him. His son held his hand and lead him to the table.

In a trembling voice he began to tell us of aging. Rather than tell us of pains in the joints or trouble with his sight he spoke of his memory. He told us, how during his youth, he was able to say a classical poem from memory using any word you would provide him. "They would say any word like 'cow' I and would read them a verse from Hafez that was about a cow. But I no longer have a memory that can wrap the world around its finger."

He brought out scrolls of glossy paper and unrolled them. They were covered in Arabic calligraphy. "My hand trembles too much now," he said. Each page looked as if it was covered beautiful, black strands of hair waving over and under each other, some braided, some unraveling.

After several minutes, he stood up to say goodbye and retire to his room.
Just as he held on the edge of the living room doorway, we asked, "So what was the verse with cow."
He turned around, cast his eyes to the ground and began to laugh. Then lifted his head and recited several full verses of Hafez that spoke of a cow.
Brought his hand to his heart, lowered his head and said goodbye.

2009-09-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

I watch the moon unravel
weaving slivers of itself in waves.
Tossing beaded threads of light,
watching waves scamper and chase, curl and twirl in play

And when the beads scatter,
on the sandy shore
a mirror reflection of the night time sky they form
Tickling the shore to giggles
as the sand lifts up and glitters
And the Pacific already looks up and
eagerly awaits another.

All night, I watch the night play its silent games
Mesmerized by the moons blushing cheeks and the Pacific's soft flowing hair
their laughter like hums and lullabies rings.

Until, from behind the sun slowly chugs
thumps over my back
clamps its locks in the tossing waves
with every minute anchors and tightens its chains
quelling the growing beauty and color of the game.

All dawn it screams in envy
with displays of color and light
but I keep my back turned
saying my goodbyes to the playful, humble night.

Seasons

2009-09-12T12:53:00.000-07:00

Fall

As she squeaks open her rusty, rickety chest
She takes another look at her always almost finished canvas
She lifts her palette and a thin tailed soft brush and begins

Gliding her hand over the edges
Of vibrant green leaves with a shade of yellow
And knows tomorrow she will be back
To fill other edges with a rusty red-brown
On every tree
On every leaf,
She’ll set her brush, and it’ll do its deed.

In several weeks
She comes back again
Her fingers squeeze through the openings of small, red scissors
She snips away one by one
The thread that keeps
The leaves with trees
Some leaves she leaves untouched for tomorrow.

Winter

Again, she sits down at her page,
With a small, wooden file
She begins scratching and peeling
Bit and pieces of the sky
And watches as they
Tip and tap, pit and patter.
The deeper she scratches
The thicker the drops
Until at last, her art lays covered.

Spring

With a sky wide open
She sets to work
Recreating and renewing
And her elbows and arms
Slowly blow away the residue of the sky on the plains.

With her canvas clean.
She takes new colors with bright shades.
And mixes and flicks
She fills the page with slivers of color in every corner.
Colors and textures unimaginable as compatible.

Vibrant red dresses, white speckles, deep green bangs.
Dark green spinach against purple cabbage.
Cliffs bended brown and gray with a string of dark gold.

Of course not all of it she fills today.
She draws the orange buds of some.
The green stems of others
Some, she said
She’ll finish tomorrow.
Others, she smiled.
Are meant to dry.

From My Grandmother's Window

2009-09-09T17:16:00.000-07:00

Motorcycles fly so fast by
They paper cut the sky

Leaving just enough time so

The girl and boy who walk towards each other
Can gently bump, slide each other their number

Passing

Vendors hold worlds in walls
Piled cucumbers the hills
Oranges the sun

Scooped

In the bags of old ladies
Holding out their hands in front of
Long lines of cars
Black Exhaust

Trailing

Lovers on a wooden bench
Her heart fills up her cheeks
As he turns his chest

Blocking

Smoke, gently writing stories in the air
From cigarettes held in a teenager’s fingertips
Slowly lifting it up to his rosy lips

All of it nestles in a reflecting bubble
That gently floats
Up to my grandmother’s window.

Call for Change

2009-09-03T14:20:00.000-07:00

I walked into the first class in the morning on the first day of class, and my professors told me that she was looking for another job, because this one would not pay!

I walked into my second class on the first day of class, and my professor told me that professors are living under the poverty line for the East Bay!

She told me that professors were leaving.
And those that were staying were staying because they loved what they were teaching.

I attend the number one public university in the world, and am ASHAMED that my professors are being forced to leave! The University we have is world renowned and instead of having faculty rush to join our community, they are running away.

Along with them our education, our enthusiasm for change, our love for knowledge, and our hope that we can CHANGE the world one person at a time.

We are being drained from our most valuable resources.

I'm writing to urge you to begin re-investing in California's public higher education system...

Join the Cause: http://www.ucforcalifornia.org/cal/home/

2009-08-31T13:43:00.001-07:00

At last, she sits upon her bed
An herbal cup of tea she's poured

Ocean blue sheets, against tan skin
A sunset in her crystal cup

Wrinkled fingers curl the glass
And rosy lips take in a sip

Fasting in FSM (Free Speech Movement Cafe)

2009-08-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

written by a hungry, fasting girl.

You chew.
I watch.
"You want a piece," you say--
a mouth spraying crumbs
your teeth pestles ever so gently grinding
the food against the walls of your cheeks.

"No, thank you," I say--
all the while looking at your lips
gates of heaven opening and closing
to sour dough bread embracing
fiery cheddar cheese
ripe tomatoes
crunchy cucumbers
bread pieces soaked in heavy, red tomato soup

"All right," you say.
the redness of strawberries caught in the cracks of your teeth
and melted chocolate against your lips.

I think the glee held in my stomach,
escaped through my eyes
at the sight of your meal.
And as doors to my stomach's desires,
my lips uncontrollably smack,
yearning to recreate the sound yours do.

2009-08-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

She sneaked a handful of tea leaves
from her mother's tin tea can
In her palm they looked like thick, shriveled, black ants.

Between the edge of her home with peeling, blue paint
and her red bicycle thrown on its side
she dug a hole,

and one by one the speckled daytime stars
fell from her fingers into their underground sky.

She had watched the tea leaves fall from her mothers fingers
into her teapot always gently humming on the stove
and she had watched that with her mother's touch
these speckled shriveled leaves came to life in full bloom

So now she sprinkled water on her tea leaves.
She gave those same black tea leaves from her mother's tin tea can.
room to grow underground
so that they could bloom
without glass walls caging them in.

Raining Against the Windows of My Office

2009-04-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

pit patter against the windows surrounding my room.

It's difficult to work in front of a computer when the only thing separating you from feeling the drips of rain strike your cheek is a solid pane of glass.
Sitting behind the glass window under the rain is a tree with bright green leaves and tiny white flowers sprinkled across it's stems. It's leaves and gentle stems drape across my window like curtains.

At times I fall into a lull with the rhythm of the rain pit pattering against my window, and the greyness of the sky that seems to put a shade of color on all that sits below it, like the world's blanket, protecting it from the disappearance of the sun.

Then suddenly, across my window a sparks of color fly by- the breast of a robin perhaps. Midst the gray it was refreshing to suddenly grasp the color. I always wondered why it is that the under breast of a bird is the one of the only features in rain that seems as if it is invincible to the gray shade of the clouds.

Perhaps it's because with rain, the birds huddle among themselves, they face their breasts in as they sit near each other in a circle, and they silently whisper the songs we normally hear to each other, lullaby.

So I guess the robin that flew across my window, must have been the one who finds the rain across its wings, sliding down its beak, fitting gently into its undersides exhilarating. The robin that flew across my window must be the one who finds a way around the single glass pane window.

The Artist and his Palette

2009-03-23T00:37:00.001-07:00

One week ago I went on a trail that passed by a creek carrying a steady hum. That passed through trees whose branches were bare, but carried powerful character and hills that were carpeted in the a shade of green not typically seen. It was a as if the color in the sun's deep yellow rays and the forest green from leaves that were on trees earlier in the season were literally blended on a palette and sprayed across the hills. The trail would ultimately lead us to a single bench on top of a hill with green grass carpet at its shoulders.

As we stepped on the thin dirt trail that ran like a beautiful woven braid from the back of this bench to the tips of our feet, I was given a California golden poppy picked from the trail and placed between my fingers.

This poppy has changed my view of the world.

As I held the poppy between my fingers and gradually stepped on the braid so delicately situated in its surroundings, I began to notice the complete coordination in its coloring. The poppy was painted with colors I would never imagine complimented each other. A bright green, similar to the blend of the green grass in its surroundings was wrapped around its stems. The petals were orange as if their artist had taken an orange and flattened its surface replacing bumpy texture with silk-- letting color move with more flow and grace through its veins, free from obstruction. And what held the green stem with the orange petals wrapped around each other was a bright, pink ring.

Green. Pink. Orange.

Three colors I would never paint together in an image, or wear together in an outfit, and yet side by side in this poppy it seemed as if they were three sisters, all born from the same mother, standing side by side--complete compliments.

Since I held this poppy between my fingers while standing on the world's shoulders, I notice the beauty and design of nature's colors on a daily basis.

Strawberries with vibrant red dresses and white speckles, and deep, green, bangs.
Salads with dark green spinach and bright purple cabbage.
Trees with patches of green moss sown into deep, brown trunks.
Cliffs blended brown and gray with strings of dark gold running across.

Since the poppy, the world around me is overflowed with color. Vibrant, passionate, jovial color. It's a world no set of words will ever be able to describe sufficiently. And rightly so because its a world I don't need to describe. Lift your head and open your eyes and you'll see it for yourself.

I Journey Through My Heart...

2009-03-16T18:24:00.000-07:00

Take my hand. I’ll take you somewhere you’ve never been before. Take my hand. Follow me. I have places to take you, a life to show you

I hesitantly slid my fingers into the hand stretched before me letting the breeze push me gently along in the direction of the imprinted footsteps ahead.

Let go of my hand. We’re in the meadows. Don’t put steps in front of another. Pause. Look around you. There’s no one in sight. It’s all yours to hold.

I let go and for a split second I was afraid. She was right. It was only me.

The grass twirled between my toes, wrapping itself around feet, dancing around my ankles. I lowered my hand forward, mesmerized by their ability to bend in thousands of directions yet remain graceful. The instant the tips of my fingers brushed against the tip of the meadow’s hair, I was no longer in control. Each blade of grass ran through my fingertips—veins in my body, surrendering my movement to the will of the wind. My feet stepped in sync with the dirt below me. I was blade of grass in a meadow, dancing to the rhythm of the wind I was immersed in. The breeze would rush up through the roots my heels had grown in the dirt below, and move my body backwards and forwards. With every beat my head would fall back toward the sky embracing the meadow with its vast ceiling of clouds. We were synchronized dancers—unified—the blades of grass and I. We kept our rhythm so as to bleed into the dirt below us.

All we were missing was a heartbeat strong enough to prick lives and engrain my heels deeper into the dirt. I felt my heart, but it lacked beat. It was void of a rhythm to push us in sync.

And as if waiting for a reason, our heartbeat started from the ceiling of dark clouds above—drip by drip, slow at first but quickly gaining speed. Every beat struck upon my tender body was a burst of hope. Every beat lost from the clouds was one bestowed in the depth of our veins. We were complete, surrendering and overpowered by the beat. No longer did we simply move with the guidance of the wind, but every heartbeat pushed us into a new direction.

With every beat, my heart gained momentum deepening its rhythm.

I felt it push against the walls of my chest, stretching its walls. And with a final beat it broke through and out it stretched…

Take my hand. I’ll take you somewhere you’ve never been before. Take my hand. Follow me. I have places to take you, a life to show you…

And so I took the hand that was extending from my body outward, from where my heart used to be. I pulled my roots out from the dirt. And I followed.

X-Ray

2009-03-11T18:44:00.000-07:00

I saw bare bones,
naked
no flesh, no thick red meat to protect them
no skin masquerading their appearance.

I saw bare bones,
and they were painted with tiny, vibrant wild flowers,
stems weaving through colors,
and binding around the whiteness
"For every time she felt love and was loved," He said.

And as I stared in awe I came across a deep, dark crevice
"Scars of when her heart broke," He said.

The darkness, filled with desire, to wrench colors from the flowers
A vacuum to unwind stems and suck them down.

Just as I was drowned in the power of a broken hear to agonize existing beauty,
A young, green stem appeared struggled in the depth of the crevice.

It pushed through the bends and dents,
blind in the darkness,
Its head peeped out,
It gained speed and began to thicken.

Color appeared,
blooming into the largest, most vibrant flower,
standing out among the rest.

I turned to Him in awe, suspicion.
He gave a smile.
And I understood.

Better than the thickest flesh,
and the strongest skin--
A flower that can fight through the crevice,
resist the hallow,
and blindly find its way,
will hold her bones together.

Smile With Me

2009-03-08T00:31:00.000-08:00

I wish there was a word that acted like the instant smile on a face. A word that when reading it would turn your body towards the sky. Either lifting the tips of your lips or the spirit in your heart.

A single image. A single moment. A snapshot.

With our bodies as the force, a smile will do more power than the longest list of words I can pen out or you can draw.

And yet we never stop trying.

For every time I take a pen or sit behind this pad, I hope that my smiles will transfer through my fingers in between these words, and even if it is for a snapshot or moment in time, your spirit will be moved and your lips will be curled up.

I'm smiling now. Did it translate?

I thought of you just like I said...

2009-03-02T22:27:00.000-08:00

When I wear her pearls around my neck, I feel her sitting beside me from her home in Dubai.

Standing in Aziz's room, to the left of the balcony window, in an old wooden closet with two doors that open outward, she kept the few belongings she had. She opened the right closet door on one of those lazy afternoons when everyone was laying down, fast asleep in some corner of the house. I sat on the ground, my back against the wall facing the closet.

I love watching her. There is a warmth in her soul, a fire that has lasted through the worst. Women of her strength tend to tuck their flames in the farthest corners of her heart, away from view. But my aunt has used her strength to build up her fire. It is her warmth that keeps her company and gives her solace.

As she reached into her closet, she pulled out her necklace, and I told her that they were beautiful.

"You can have it if you like it. I don't wear it," she said with a smile on her face.

I was drawn to them. I felt like she was giving me a part of herself. So I held them between my fingers and placed them against my neck.

"They're not real, but they're nice," she said not realizing that I thought they were beautiful because they had once been placed around her neck, and not because of their physical appearance as pearls.

I held them between my fingers and told her that when I wear them, I'll think of her.

Two night ago I wore the pearl necklace around my neck to a concert, and I felt her there beside me. Moments when the music filled up the room, and lifted my mind through the curls and spins of its sounds, I would see her sitting in front of me lighting a cigarette while laughing and saying "Shokoofeh, cigarettes are bad for you," just as she set it against her lips and took in a breath. I would see her standing in the kitchen pouring herself a cup of tea, or getting ready to leave the house.

But most of all, I would see her telling stories with all of us sitting around her. Stories of her students who would outsmart her, of her walks home from work in Dubai. Stories from her childhood during the revolution, or the power of her sixth sense to warn her against danger.

With the music filling the room, I would feel her build her stories around my neck through the pearl necklace, tying each pearl together with the smoke of her cigarette and melting the clasp in the back to hold it tight with her warmth. And though she's far, her pearls stem from her heart to my neck. She's always only a necklace away.

My Clan of Crazies

2009-02-25T14:25:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again when the libraries begin to fill. Students stride past the doors with heavy backpacks, thermoses filled with the highest levels of caffeine hidden at their sides as they quickly walk past the front desk, and minds filled with facts that need to be ingrained before the nights end. It's this time of year when I begin to steer as far away from the library as possible.

I love the library during the early weeks in the semester, when students go there with merely the intention to study, and since no tests exist in the near future to gauge their understanding of the hours spent in the library, they find a place at a table and open their books, hold their pens between their fingers, simply to feel studious for the time being.

It's during these times when tables of students suddenly giggle in whispers, and lovers sneak glances and hold hands under the table, friends write notes to each other, students walk aimlessly through the books picking and choosing whatever sounds interesting.

Unfortunately these times are short, for conditions change way to soon, and tables begin to fill with students whose bottoms are chained to the edge of their seats, whose elbows are glued to the edge of the table, and whose books are nailed to the wooden surfaces.

Though I try to steer away from the library during these days, I occasionally step in--waiting. Waiting for someone brave enough and strong enough to unlock a few of those chains and make a table of students jump quietly in their seat with laughter.

Perhaps I'll recruit a team myself. I'll recruit a team of students who will step in every four hours or so--some sort of disruptive clan of crazies-- who will sit at tables "in disguise" and randomly burst into uncontrollable laughter for a whole minute before calming down. I'm sure it'll force a few smiles to creep up on people's faces and that alone is enough to tickle and shake up this heavy, morbid vibe.

"The Secret"

2009-02-21T23:15:00.000-08:00

They say that the "secret" to life is the law of attraction. It's to understand that every thought you have has a frequency; positive thoughts translate to larger frequencies, and negative thoughts to smaller frequencies. And every "thought" attracts the "thing" it is made of. Ultimately, your life's thoughts are manifested in the world around you.

Today, I started thinking about this phenomenon again. It crosses my mind every few days. It's hard for me to accept it. Not because I don't believe in the energy of thoughts, but because to accept it would be to accept that every inward pain I've ever felt, I've brought upon myself. Friendships that have crippled my soul and left me to dust, moments of weakness that have made me ashamed, tears I've brought to the eyes of those I love- to accept "the secret" would mean to accept that these have all been my doing. And usually, thinking about this part of the "secret" results in me setting it aside for a different day.

Today was different.

Today I thought that to accept the fact that my thoughts have attracted my realities would mean that making my mother smile on her birthday, feeling love, being talented, seeing the peace of the world more than the pain-- these would be all my doing. That my heart had brought the people who I love into my life.

I finally came to a conclusion about "the secret," and can cross it off my list.
Even though there's no way to prove its truth, no way to carve out numbers or facts or statistics or reactions...it can train my mind and heart to think of love over pain and talent over failure. I don't think that will be all too bad.

And since I've accepted it, I try it on pretty much everything- including scenic routes in movies, and pictures of houses with wooden floors and bay windows that let in a lot of light.

I'll let you know if they come my way ;)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b1GKGWJbE8

Pieces of my Playground...

2009-02-19T22:34:00.000-08:00

Recesses with my forehead against the concrete wall near my class, and my hands on my head. Time out they would call it. I spent enough of my fifteen minute recesses against this wall, at some point teachers gave up on supervision and attended to better and bigger things. It was in these moments that my classmates would all gather around seeping into the normally-dreaded corner, and filling it with sounds of laughter. Scraping pieces of tanbark against the ground making stars and circles, I’d promise them that tomorrow I’d behave and we’d be in the sandpit instead of on the dark concrete next to the room we just came out of.

Shaka put Laila’s eraser into his mouth during recess and left it wet and slimy on her desk for when she came back. We decided that a decent punishment would be to go to a far off corner of our elementary school playground and dig a hole, deep like a well, fill it up with muddy water, cover the top with sticks and leaves and call him over with some excuse, watch him stand and fall in and then tell him that he should never put a girl's eraser into his mouth again. We never finished it. In fact, before we were able to avenge Laila’s eraser, all our feet had fallen into the mud hold at least once. Our deep avenging powerful well was left at a small dent in the ground.

Lunch times consisted of all of us making a massive circle, one of us standing in the center turning round and round. Cut the cake, cut the cake, lay the pieces nice and straight. From kindergarteners to fifth graders—all forty of us singing in perfect unison. Chasing each other round and round and round the circle till we tired.

I’d sit in the sand pit, and stretch out my hand, and, just as I promised, would let her practice her henna patterns. Only I never had the patience to hold my hand in empty space for much longer than five minutes. There’s too much to attend to in a playground…

…especially when you’re trying to find a way to get into the older grades’ secret clubhouses. Their clubhouse was built under the only tree. Their clubhouse with spare tires (ruins from our inner city surroundings) as walls, spare pieces of wood as tiles, and a nail against a tree for a framed picture.

Kickball, States, Hopscotch, Clap games.

These are my playground memories.

And now I’m twenty, and our schools no longer have playgrounds.

Twenty where the schedule doesn’t carve out a fifteen minute block in your day, commanding you to play, where no one sees a piece of chalk against a blackboard and thinks to grab it and draw out a large hopscotch grid against the cement, where you can no longer dig through the mud with high aspirations of playful revenge.

And yet, I’ve managed to keep my playground. I keep it, with its spare tires, cement, and sand. I keep it all, with its hopscotch, and mud and kickball fields in my head. It’s perfectly intact. It’s quite a fun place only I’m the only one throwing stones against my boxes, and my balls only bounce as they leave my fingertips, and the cement corners are only filled with my laughter.

So here I am extracting my clubhouse from the corners and boxes of my mind, and extending a hand. Asking you to bounce me the ball back. Hold my hand and make a circle. Run around as we call states. Kick the ball when it comes your way. Chase me to the swings. Draw henna on my hand. Spit on my eraser. Keep me out of the secret clubhouse. Send me off to corners.