a book of ordinary people

عاشق اون عکسها هستم .همه عکسهای بابا قبل از دهه شصت. یک حال خاصی داره تو اون عکسها یک سرخوشی خاص . معمولا تواون عکسها سرش رو به آسمون هست و چشمهایش نیمه بسته .یک عکس هست مال سال پنجاه وچهار.باید تازه از زندان آزاد شده باشه.یک آرامش و اطمینان خاصی توی قیافه اش هست.شاید میدونه که" شاه دیگر هیچ غلطی نمی تونه بکنه"
بهمن سال شصت ویک من چهار ساله بودم.تو جبهه بود که بگیر بگیر ها شروع شد
آقای عمویی پیغام فرستاد که همه بروید وخودتان را به وزارت اطلاعات معرفی کنید اگر میخواهید بچه هایتان یتیم و آواره نشوند.
از جبهه برگشت و رفت التزام عملی داد به نظام. من ایستاده بودم کنارش ونگاهش می کردم وقتی داشت کتابخانه اش را آتش می زد. هنوز نگاهش یادم هست. رو به زمین بود وچشمهایش باز بود وخجالت زده و شاید کمی مبهوت.و من تا سالها نمی فهمیدم معنی :" انقلابمان را دزدیدند" یعنی چه؟ شاید برای اینکه از روزی که یادم می آید ما غریبه بودیم و ضد انقلاب. هر که را می شناختیم یا زندانی بود یا اعدامی یافراری. خیلی خوش شانس بودی پرونده داشتی تو وزارت اطلاعات . یادش بخیر آدمهای معلوم الحالی بودیم.
بعدش هم از بیمارستان چمران آمد بیرون.همان بیمارستان که به قول خودش "ماها راهش انداختیم." قبل از آن آسایشگاه مسلولین بوده. بابا میرفته سر خیابان زند وانت می گرفته مریضهایی را که نمازی به خاطر کمبود جا جواب می کرده میبرده چمران. کم کم پای بقیه هم باز می شود آنجا و آسفالت می شود. دیگر هیچ وقت پایش را نگذاشت چمران. خودش بود و مطبش که می دانم یک روز هم دلش آنجانبود.
کجا بودیم آها نگاهش دیگر کمتر به آسمان بود .افسردگی آمد سراغش که آخرهم دمار قلبش را درآورد.تو عکسهایش از آن به بعد خیره می شود به دور دستها. هنوز ناامید نیست و می گوید که مبارزه طولانی است. به براندازی اعتقادی ندارد و طرفدار سرسخت اصلاح طلبی است. اما من میدانم که این بابا خیلی فرق دارد با آن بابای قبل از چهارسالگی ام. حرف عمویم هنوز توی گوشم هست وقتی بعد از بیست سال بابا را دید :" این ضیا اون ضیایی نیست که من باهاش بزرگ شدم." چطور می توانی خودت بمانی وقتی جلوی چشمت تمام امید وآرزویت رابدزدند و تو ازترس جانت بایستی و فقط نگاه کنی. بابا جان حق اون نگاه سرخوش تو این همه غم نبود.

دهعه شصت را باباشروع کردبا سوزاندن کتابهایش و عکسهایش وشاید خاطراتش.همه را بردند وآنهایی هم که توانستند فرار کردند. ما ماندیم وشدیم زندانی حیاط خلوتی که بابا همه چیز را آنجا سوزاند. ما ماندیم تامحکوم شویم به زجر ابدی.بخوابی کابوس می بینی بیدار شوی زندگی ات یک کابوس است. خاطرات کمرنگ می شوند با گذر زمان اما دردش میماند.

You know that perfect moments that you have with your friends. When you are walking out of a Crazy Irish Pub towards your car and you say : "If Only I had a cigarette tonight would be perfect." And one of your friends hands you a cigarette and you start smoking while the other friend looks at you with disbelief :" You smoke?" and You reply : " Oh yeah and I teach smoking cessation classes too!!!" And then all of a sudden everyone bursts into laughter. Remember the expressions on everybody's faces....
When people are making love, or simply having sex and are really enjoying it.Remember the expression on their faces? Nobody is laughing, or having a good time. Sometimes it feels like they are suffering, as if they are in pain. And when it is all over, you can even hear the sigh of relief. People don't really laugh after having orgasm. With sex, pleasure is pain and pain is pleasure. Not in a sadistic-masochist sense, just a simple observation.

These days I am down in ICU. So far we have had three people coded on us. One of them tried to drink himself to death after his wife left him for excessive drinking. The other two had multiple complications. One of them kept coming back from dead and we persuaded her family to stop the resuscitation. We let her take her sweet time dying and walked back to our stations.I will never forget the expression on her face, her eyes were closed and it seemed like she did not want to be bothered with Life.
The third was an amputee, nobody exactly knows what happened ( most of the time that is the case). Massive organ failure. I ran down the stairs from the fifth floor down to ICU with the blue box in my hand. I never got to see his face. He was sent to the hospice in the next day or so.
I like it down here in ICU, in a very strange way .ICU is Full of expressionless faces of people who are heavily sedated in order to be mechanically ventilated. Some of them may never get to wake up.
When you look at it from a distance : Joy, death, pain, pleasure, life, sorrow and so many other words are just arbitrary. Why do we Scream while having an orgasm? Aren't you supposed to scream when you are scared and need help or maybe are angry? Why pleasure can be painful but death feels like nothing?
I am not trying to be philosophical here,no on contrary I am learning how to be normal. How to let everything just be.....
Be it death, Orgasm, or Joy....
I have started to like hospitals, I think I am staying....

Labels: rotation diaries

So the 30 is almost over, me being 30 years old I mean, and in couple of days I will be turning 31 years old.

Good or bad 30 is an arbitrary milestone in our minds. For me it was and still is, even though I have lived it and it did not feel much different than other years. It was as different as 28th and 29th were.

How did I feel about being 30? I felt old, in a very good way. There is a quality to growing old in your skin that I can not describe. I do not have the energy that I used to have when I was in my 20s anymore, and trust me it is the best thing that has happened to me in life next to discovering Tiramisu. I need to budget my energy, so there it goes
1) work to pay my bills
2) clean my house
3) socialize and travel once in a while.
So that means energy wise I can not afford to:
1) think too much about little details in life
2) argue too much about useless intellectual shit
3) stay up so late.
Just like 3-4 weeks ago in a party, I danced only to half of the songs and then by 12:00 am I had the Cinderella urge to leave the party. Because staying up after 12:00 meant that I would wake up late the next day and the preparation of presentations for the next week would be delayed and therefore my grocery shopping and therefore my laundry and so on. So yeah at 30 you become a real grown up..
On a more personal level what happened to me at 30? A lot I suppose or maybe nothing. Nobody disappointed me so you see that is a lot but in actuality nothing happened.
So I am going to scribble down couple of things that happened to me while i was being 30 years old in a very random manner:

A) I went on a cruise to Bahamas and as stupid as it sound I might go on another cruise, it is the gift of universe to the lazy people who like to travel. you do not even have to look for a place to eat ( trust me sometimes that becomes a big pain in a group trip).

B) my brother took my digital camera and moved to South America. In other families people steal better things and move to South America.But my family has always been a bit of loser ,when it comes to lying,stealing and cheating and I am not even sure if that is a virtue.
C) A friend of mine revealed to me that she is dying to have an affair, a very simple one of course, since her husband of 3 years is the only guy that she has never cheated on. I told her not to go for it,because it will never be simple and she might end up regretting it for the rest of her life. That is it, this time around I did not approach the issue from my moral high grounds, because I do not have any. Thirty means becoming practical. A marriage is an investment in time,money and emotions and an affair no matter how simple it might be;is too big of a risk to be worth taking. If the marriage is not worth your time/money/emotions bow out of it with grace, do not let OTHER circumstances end it. Have I ever mentioned that no one in my family has ever gambled or have the slightest interest in gambling?
D) A coup and a following uprising has happened in my country,and for the first time in 100 years nobody even remotely related to me and my family ( even an acquaintance) is on the run, in jail, going to exile, stripped out of all his/her basic human rights under house arrest, executed or burning their Russian Novels. Just for one simple fact: pretty much all the living members of my family and our family friends live outside Iran and most of them can not even write their names in Farsi. This time around the only price we paid was a lot of tears, and return of nightmares and memories that all of us sincerely thought were suppressed after 80s ( dahaye shast) ended.
Btw: Can someone explain to me why my family has no problem gambling their lives so that the world becomes a better place but barely takes any risks when it comes to other matters in life?

E) I went to a silent retreat and did nothing but meditate trying to think about nothing. For a week I did not talk, read,no ipods, or computers. It was tough, at one point I caught myself during the act of emotional eating.I never knew that I was even capable of finishing my own plate and then I found myself overeating. I had no other of way expressing my emotions. At the end though it was great, something changed inside of me. I am not exactly sure what it was and how did the change happened. But it was good, it still is...

F) Not that I ever was big on drinking. But recently I have noticed that I can not be an honest drunk anymore. My job had taught me to hide my emotions very well, I have learned to pretend that people's death makes me extremely upset and is shocking when in fact I knew it was coming and at that point was a way better option that life. Alcohol is supposed to have disinhibitory effect on people and make them feel like their real selves. Twice in a row after having couple of beers, and considerable amount of shots. I continued to laugh and pretended that i was enjoying hanging out with friends and then have rushed to the bathroom started crying, at one point I even kicked the door of my bathroom in rage and then came back to friends all smiling. I have learned to control myself even when i am drunk, and worst of all I am not a happy drunk anymore...

G) This one might not make any sense to anyone. But after all these years, once and for all I have ceased to see the empty chairs. I used to see them all the time. In a party, in restaurant, in bars. But one day we were in a party and it was packed and even though I have always managed to see empty chairs even in packed parties, this time around there was nothing. It is as if an empty hole in me has been filled. I am too old to look for things and people who do not exist anymore I suppose

H) I sat in front of a man who was empty and was not capable of feeling anything. I explained to him how people felt and how he had to react to them. He thought about it and realized it was true and acted upon my advice. I still can not believe it but this man did not react to any outside stimuli. He reminded me of Dexter
I still do not know what has happened to him in childhood that had made him so devoid of emotions,but I command his ability to let his head become his heart in the absence of it.

I) I have grown into a less confused version of myself.I read a lot of history these days, a lot. What I have realized is that at the end of the day nobody is all that innocent and not that many of us will go to heaven, if there is any.

.... to be continued I meant Life

این را برای پروین خانم را که دهه شصت به جای مدیریت کارخانه ،خیاطی می کرد و هر چهارشنبه دم زندان عادل آباد بود تا برود ملاقاتی نازنین تر مرد دنیا می گذارم.و مادرم که تنش می لرزید از هر زنگ در چرا که خانه چپی های محل را علامت زده بودند .
قصه زیاد دارم از آن روزها.. دارم می نویسم.آرام آرام ،نمی خواهم احساستی بنویسم و پر از خشم. فقط می خواهم بنویسم تا هیچ کداممان فراموش نکنیم آن روزها را و یاد بگیریم رو به جلو برویم و خدای نکرده عقب گرد نکنیم.
بیست سال دیگر سرمان را بالا بگیریم وبا لبخند یادمان بیاید که دهه هشتادونود دهه شصت نشد.

آمده ام خانه جدید و مثل همیشه موقتی است. حا لا بگو کدام خانه موقتی نیست خانه آخرت؟ بگذریم . نمی خواهم
زیاد اسباب ببرم که میشود بلای جانم. یکهو فکری به ذهنم می رسد : خانه ام را عشایری درست می کنم. این هم از آن چیزهایی است که باید شیراز بزرگ شده باشی تا بفهمی. یادم هست یک بار نفیسه می گفت خانه مستاجر بختیاری اشان را چه قدر دوست دارد. "هیچ چیزی توی خانه اشان نیست جز وسایل ضروری زندگی حتی یک دست مبل هم ندارند. پشتی دارند."
فکر کنم فامیلهای اصفهانی مادرم بشنوند سکته کنند. (که آدمهایی هستند متمو ل و لازم نمی بینند مبل بخرند.حا لا مبل استیل که هیچ.) اما ایلیاتیهاهمه همین طور بودند. آنهایی که من میشناختم همه چند نسل بود که شهر نشین بودند و همه دوستان دوران دانشگاه پدرو مادرم بودند و همه خا ن زاده های به نسبت متمولی بودند. اما خانه هایشان همه مثل هم بود : خلوت ( به زبان ما شهریها می شود خالی!!) یک قالی عشایری داشتند و چند تا گلیم وچند تا پشتی .
خاله ناهید که قشقایی بود و شوهرش یکی از پزشکان به نام شیراز بود (ایلیاتی نبود) و برو بیایشان واقعا زیاد بود حتی با معیارهای شیرازی ( شیرازیها خیلی عادت ندارند به خانه نشینی همیشه بهانه ای پیدا می کنند برای بیرون رفتن و خوش بودن.) داده بود چند تا مبل چوبی ساده ساخته بودند و پشتی هایشان را روی آن میگذاشتند. آن آخرها هم یک چند تا لوستر خریده بودند به گمانم.
دوستان عشایرما تا یادم می آ ید مثل اینکه همیشه آماده به کوچ بودند. حالا که یادم می آید می بینم آکثرا هم از ما ل دنیا چیزی نداشتند. اکثرا یا خانه اجاره ای می نشستند یا جا های خیلی متوسط شهر. با اینکه موقعیتشان مثلا از پدر من بدتر نبود. ما نه هیچ وقت اجاره نشین بودیم و نه خدای نکرده خانه مان محله ای بو د که خانواده دما غ سر بالای پدری را که گاهی راه گم می کردند و به جای سفر خارجشان می آمدند شهرستان را سرافکنده کند.

حالا من نشسته ام توی خانه مثلا عشایری ام و زل زده ام به سمت راستم . دو تا پشتی قشقایی گذاشته ام و باید سومی اش را از خانه پدری بیاورم. این پشتیها فکر کنم همسن من باشند دست بافند و مادرم سالها پیش از بازار وکیل شیراز خریده بود از دستفروشهای قشقایی. و حالا سرو کله اشان پیدا شده توی خانه دانشجویی بنده در شمال کالیفورنیا لب اقیانوس. جا نی دارند این پشتیها ، مثل جنسهای پیزوری چینی نیستند . می بافندشان که طاقت بیاورند زیر باد و باران و ان همه کوچ ، مثل خود قشقاییها . شاید هم برای همین است که جز معدود اسباب خانه امان توی ایران هستند که طاقت این کوچ را آوردند. راستی کسی میداند مبلها چه بلایی سرشان آمد یا میز پینگ پنگ؟
نگاه سمت چپم می کنم ، خالی است زیاده از حد. مادرم ازراه میرسد و می گوید که یک میز تاشو دارند خانه اشان و می آردش برای من تا بگذارمش این گوشه خا لی و این قدر توی ذوق نزند. ما شهریها را می بینی ؟ طاقت نداریم یک گوشه خلوت را ببینیم. تن به همه بدبختی می دهیم که یک چیزی پیدا کنیم و پرش کنیم. بعد هم می نشینیم غرغر می کنیم که خفه اما ن کرد این همه آشغا ل که یک عمر خودمان را لت و پار کردیم که جمعشان کنیم. شاید از بس دور مانده ایم از طبیعت یادمان رفته که کویر به قشنگی جنگل است.

من یکی که هنوز بلد نیستم خانه خلوت اصلا چه طور میتوان داشت؟ میترسم از فضاهای خالی ، شاید می ترسم صدایم تویشان بپیچد ، شاید هم ازبچه گی یک ترسی گذاشته اند توی دلم ناخودآگاه. شاید هم خانه آدم نشان میدهد که آن بالای آدم چه خبر است. خانه ذهنمان را هم طاقت نداریم خالی نگه داریم. دایم باید پرش کنیم از فکرهایی که پشیزی ارزش ندارند.

آخر هفته می آیم خانه پدری و هر چه که رنگ و بوی قشقایی دارد را جمع می کنم و هزار تا چیز دیگررا که ببرم با خودم . خانه ام رنگ و بوی عشایری خواهد داشت ، به یاد شهرم و خاطرات بچه گیهایم. اما خودم هنوز از تبار فکل کراواتیهای شهری ام .دعا کنید روزی برگردم شهرم و بروم ازایلیاتیها زندگی کردن یاد بگیرم.

Labels: ordinary stories

I don't really miss you.
there was nothing about you to be missed..
And that is exactly what I miss, the peace that came upon me when I was around you...
There was absolutely nothing about you. No judgment, no extreme emotions, no expectations...
you would drift into your own world and I would into mine...
Occasionally we would talk about random non-personal matters...
I never knew much about you, and you did not know much about me neither...
And it really did not matter
What is there to know, that we already could not see?
I lied I missed you the first couple of days that I left, I missed that peace of mind that i had while you were in the room. But not anymore...
Unknowingly you uncovered my inner peace,and guess what I am not going to let this one go away....
I guess that means I will never miss you, cause you are always here right by my side...