When I was 7 years old, I wrote a letter and mailed it to America to a cousin that I adored who was now living in a country that I only dreamt about. What I would give to enter the world of the 7-year old me writing this letter from Iran during the worst revolution [...]
iran
Someday I will go back to Iran. It will be summertime so the roses will be in full bloom, the air will be full of optimism, tinged with a trace of nostalgia, and the warm Tehran sun can quickly dry my tears to save my lush eye makeup, just in case. My life revolves around [...]
In my life, I have wished for a million things, I have dreamt a thousand dreams; I have pursued hundreds of passions and goals and yet, never for a serious minute in all of my fantastic 30 plus years have I wished to have a child. That’s me. I must be strange. I must be [...]
Sometimes, a small action on the part of one can instill a lifetime of pursuit and passion on the part of another. The occasion may come about as ordinarily as is passing of the hours in a day and this transformation of grand measures may be as transparent as shining glass between the two people [...]
If you ever leave your home country for another, you will no doubt gain a world of experience and adventure but you will still have to make some sacrifices, no matter who you are and whence you come. Let giving up your traditions not be one of those sacrifices! Ah traditions! It may be the [...]
How is it that some of us so clearly remember memories from the earliest years of life on this earth while the rest of us struggle in vain to find a shred of anything that would awaken those sleeping beauties and bring them to the surface to let us to rejoice in? I have been [...]
Searching the Ripples of my Mind for Childhood Memories “Do you remember the time in school when…” The place is Razi Elementary School in Iran. The time is in the early 1980s. The question is posed by a long lost childhood friend who found me by sheer accident on an otherwise ordinary Monday and has [...]
A picture. A few words in a book. A flashback. That is all it takes for our memories to be triggered from their dormant existence in the quiet corners of our mind. It can be nearly 30 years later and much may fade away in this life but some memories are pertinacious. No sooner had [...]
March 20th 2010 – The first day of spring and the Iranian new year more commonly known as Nowrūz (spelled at least half a dozen different ways in its tangled translation to modern English). The dawn of a new day, new season, and new beginnings. In a traditional Persian style, one of my cousins married [...]
When I saw Azar Nafisi‘s “Reading Lolita in Tehran” on the shelves in my beloved Maui, Hawaii, I distinctly heard it beckon me. The time has come to read this book. I was in paradise, as anyone who has ever set foot in Hawaii knows well. The warm perfect breeze combined with Mother Nature’s pristine beauty [...]
Oh it is ever so to forget this book is fiction when it has been a true story a hundred times over for countless Iranian women who have left Iran in hopes of a better life. Either they find the suitable spouse with a green card in Iran or else they move in with family [...]
A memoir of growing up Iranian in America – that alone should give away the reason “Funny in Farsi” is one of my dear favorites. I love Firoozeh Dumas’s dry wit. I love her bold spirit. I love her courage to be self-deprecating and her defense of the Iranian culture conundrums. I admire how she [...]
