MEDITATIVE THOUGHTS DURING YOGA

I haven’t been to yoga since the full force of the fall term workload hit me smash in the face. But now I have beaten back the e-mails somewhat, and so find myself sitting on the floor of the gym, my back against the wall, my legs stretched out in front of me, waiting for the yoga teacher to arrive… I am dressed in white baggy cotton capris and a red cotton top. It feels nice to be in summery clothes again. I glance at my legs.. and stifle a gasp of horror… my legs are all hairy, with bristly stubble sprouting out in full unshaven glory.

Yes. With summer over, the only body parts which receive any attention are the the visible bits: face, hair and hands. Honestly, it just seems a waste of time to tend to the parts which are wrapped up in layers of warm cloth- I mean, who cares?

But now, I feel the skin on my legs prickling with shame at their hairy glory. I take a peek at the outstretched legs of my neighbours. On the left, the legs are sensibly covered with long grey trouser legs. Ha- I bet your legs are as hairy as a bear as well, otherwise why wear long trousers at the gym?  On the right, smooth white freshly-shaven skin glimmers in the dark twilight of the energy-conscious gym.

I glance further down the line. Joy! A pair of legs even hairier than mine- only… those hairs are different- they are long and proud, they know they belong on those thick legs, they are not embarrassed and short like my poor sun-starved leg-hairs.  

A man. Of course. The only man in the yoga class, stretching his hairy legs with nary a thought of how horrible the hairs look. And of course, they don’t look horrible- on him. They just look ordinary. But mine, oh, I tuck my legs beneath me, oh they look awful. The teacher arrives and I untuck my legs. And I spend the rest of class twisting and turning and pulling my stomach in and extending my spine and letting the light flow into my being and…thinking about how horrible my legs look.

“WHEN WE DO NOT SPEAK OF SOMETHING, OR RATHER, SPEAK LESS ABOUT IT…

…it does not mean we have forgotten it. Not so soon. People do not forget these sort of things so quickly. Only, these memories are archived in another part of the brain, so we can continue with daily living.

Do you know where we are left? Somewhere where They come and go, repeating their nonsense everyday. Going to meetings, giving lectures, going on trips, returning in the evening to the warm embrace of Their family. They hug Their children and crawl into bed beside Their wives. With those same bloody hands which can never be washed. And in the morning, They look at Their repulsive faces in the the mirror, and walk out of Their front door.

You know, sometimes the line between a human and a non-human is badly blurred…”

 

translated by permission of the author from the blog “sir hermes…”

CRANBERRY BREAD, WITHOUT CRANBERRIES

The Goddess (my new name for the princess’s school teacher. The Goddess orders, and we obey) made cranberry bread in class on Friday, and then handed out the recipe, titled “Grandma’s famous Cranberry Bread” to the children to take home. On Saturday, I forgot to take the recipe to the supermarket, and hysterics and sulks ensued. On Sunday, we were emergency shopping for ingredients: flour! sugar! baking soda! baking powder! (what’s the difference?) raisins! frozen cranberries! And several hours later, we were busy chopping cranberries, grating orange rind (an amazingly difficult activity, if you’ve never done it) and mixing ingredients to bake cranberry bread.

Despite being familiar with cranberry through my obssessive rereadings of the Little House series as a child, I never felt tempted to take advantage of my residence in Canada to actually buy any. Now I know how wise I was- cranberries can be considered as the North American equivalent of the Iranian berry zereshk: round, small, red and sour. Except Canadians don’t cook cranberries with rice and chicken and saffron, they do… different things… with them. Like bake bread.

So the recipe was quite good, the actual bready-part tasted like cake, and it is possible we were over-enthusiastic with berries since the princess said the Goddess used only half a cup, whereas we used a cup and a half, following the recipe by the letter. It is just the damn cranberries were so sour, and absolutely exploding out of the the bread, so every bite of bread gave us a mouthful of cranberries. I’m surprised Grandma’s blood pressure didn’t fall to zero after eating her creation, and that she had enough energy to pass it on her descendants.

Today, I am going to bake another loaf of cranberry bread, now that I have the ingredients (the princess has lost all interest in baking, meanwhile, and is nagging at me for her friends to come over). Only, it will be a hundred percent raisin cranberry-bread- cranberry bread without the cranberries.

GIRL, CORRUPTED

Last year this time, I felt purged, free from the shackles of a cumbersome bureaucracy which had begun to haunt me  and a routinized 8-4 office life. I was reading new texts, discussing them with new people, learning new words and learning to use old words differently. My days were fluid, curving round the requirements of classes and assignments, and I did not spend most of my waking hours in front of the computer.  I talked to people face-to-face, not through e-mail, I didn’t even know their e-mails. It was pretty obvious to me that I would get my MA by September 2009, and go on to start my PhD by January 2010.

Where did that go? Now I watch myself juggling two part-time office jobs, both of which involve a lot of  e-mailing and seeing very little of actual real live people, while half-heartedly trying to do a research which seems to have a bizarre life of its own. I would be lucky if I could even finish the research by December, and write up the bloody thesis by March 2010. The days seems to fly by as I gallop from one set of computers to another, and the e-mails shoot out from beneath my fingers. I hardly see anyone not related to work or close family. Why did I let them (includes myself) talk me into applying for and getting jobs? Why did I let myself be sucked in by all the congratulatory blah blah blah? Why did I deviate from the path I had set for myself? (yes, I know. Money of course, and wanting more and more of it.)

I’m not interested in doing a PhD anymore… my goal now is to get better jobs than what I have already, jobs which pay more and presumably involve even more e-mailing. Tainted by the labour market, I don’t really see the point of spending another N years in the university, talking about (in a rather dissatisfied, critical way) what other people are doing outside of academia. And I certainly don’t see what I could possibly do after getting the sort of PhD I would be likely to receive… The general idea is that with a decent MA, you can more or less get a decent job, and that’s what I want, now.

But I had a decent job, back home! And I didn’t want it anymore, remember?

It feels like I’m sucked into a vortex trying to recreate the same life I had in Iran, now in Canada. And it doesn’t make sense.

I HATE RICH PEOPLE.

I’m sorry. This is is a stupid statement, I know. It’s immoral, wrong, ignorant, unthoughtful, un-intelligent, inconsiderate, unkind, un-original- all the things I try not be. But still, I don’t commit adultery, I don’t drink (excessively) or gamble,  I don’t hate my neighbour, I kind of like my parents, I don’t throw rubbish on the pavement, I don’t worship graven images, I mind my own business, if someone asks me for help in English or MS Word (the two things I’m really good at) I try to help them, I give fresh fruit to my children as snacks, I’m not racist, I generally try to behave like an ordinary decent person, so I might as well indulge in this vice. Hating rich people.

This is what I learned after burying myself up to my ears in student loans: people are not “homogenous”. Before I attended Dalhousie, I though this word referred to milk, now I know better. It means there are no “Africans”, no “womenandchildren”, no “Iranians”- every single individual has their own worth and needs and problems, and if you start talking about people as if they are groups of sheep, then you’re heading for trouble.

Well, these sweet enlightened professors might have saved their breath, because when it comes to rich people, I’m homogenizing like crazy. I hate them all. Especially rich Iranians. Those- I can’t stand.

My father, in his former life, worked as a textile factory inspector, and what he saw in factories gave him a lasting, deep-rooted, never-dying hatred of factory-owners and their clans which extends to rich people in general; in our family, rich is another word for dumb, immoral, depraved, corrupt- you get the picture.

Not that we associate with rich people regularly, oh no. However, this morning, I had the pleasure of going to an office for an errand which by chance, brought me into close contact with a group of rich Iranians (ever heard of the Provincial Nominee Programme? I say no more), and once again, I thought pedar, how right you are. I just can’t stand being in the same room with these people.

I don’t know which is more off-putting and sick-making: the sheer arrogance, the undisguised racism, the pretentious manners, the totally unfunny jokes, the sense of entitlement, the blatant sexism… The men all think they are a combination of Don Juan in charm,  The Onion in wit and Noam Chomsky in their keen ability to conduct socio-economic analysis. The women consider themselves the rivals of Marilyn Monroe, however, their plunging decolletages and over-dyed orange-yellow hair, their hysteric too-loud  laughs, terrible make-up, over-plucked eyebrows and bad nose-jobs make them stick out like sore thumbs.

I haven’t had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with any Canadian rich people- but I’d like to know, are rich people internationally so insufferable? Or is this yet another Iranian malaise?

SEVEN DAYS AND SEVEN NIGHTS

Iranian fairy tales don’t end with “and they lived happily ever after.” Instead, as the happy heroine and hero of the fable get married after killing giants, battling evil step-mothers etc, the stories typically end “and they partied for seven days and seven nights.” Meanwhile, the bad guys- the wicked step-mother and step-sister, have their hair tied to the tail of a wild horse, which is then let loose in the desert beyond the town. That is the equivalent of Snow White’s step-mother being forced to danced in red-hot shoes until she dies in front of the blissful newly-weds, which is what happens in the unpasteurized, un-Disneyfied version.

Anyway, these days are the days of the princess`s birthday. I say days, because it feels we have been involved in this birthday for much more than seven days and seven nights. Since -when- mid August? late July? the princess has been talking about her birthday: who she will invite, what she will wear, presents, decorations, treat bags, making my head spin and the world appear a menacing, dark place full of screaming little girls in pink frilly dresses eating cake and spilling pop on my beautiful Persian carpets, while the golden boy tries to pull their hair and punch them.  

Last month, we were in a stationary shop, and the princess fell in love with a big, beautiful wooden easel- the kind which artists use to prop up their works. She was consumed with the desire to posses, and I struck what seemed to be a very clever bargain with her: I would buy her the easel ($80, if you please) as a very expensive birthday gift, and in return, no birthday parties. On the night of the birthday itself, we would dine at a fancy restaurant. The princess agreed, the easel was bought, and everyone was happy.

However, less than a week after, the birthday-party pressure group was revitalized. Just a small birthday, only five people. Only four. Only three. Only two. Just a cake, no supper. Just an ordinary playdate, except could we have cake instead of milk and cookies? Just a playdate, only with four people instead of one. Ok, just one person, but then can we have decorations and treat bags?

Then, she caught sight of the Halloween costume of her dreams, full of black lace and purple satin, with sparkly lights in the skirt and black cats in the bodice. The dress. The world became the dress. She wanted the dress. No birthday parties, no talk about the birthday parties, if only she could have the dress. Another bargain was struck, and dress came home. There was no talk of a birthday party for about two hours.

Then, the phone calls began. Little girls who talked to me with the assurance of an elderly government officer. ”So what time is the princess’s birthday tomorrow? Have you invited so-and-so? I have their phone number, if you need it.”

Now, we are going shopping. To buy cake and snacks and decorations and treat bags. It is the princess’s birthday, this afternoon.

NEW FALL/WINTER HAT

A picture is worth a thousand words…

 

http://thenewcomer.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/photo0216.jpg

BIG IN JAPAN

It is so typically Canadian that in the nearby downtwn food court, where hoards of hungry office and service workers lunch every week day, there is a line 2 km long by the sushi bar by 11:50 am. The bar only accepts cash, no cards, if you please -a sure sign that they are raking it in- but the neighbouring bars which offer “traditional” Canadian-European fare remain killing flies (as we say).

I succeeded in dragging my colleague away from the sushi bar (“Look, it’s cold! and rainy! do we really want to eat raw cold fish, seaweed and  cold cucumbers wrapped in sticky cold rice?) and tempted her with a nice hot steak and kidney pud. She admitted that even in Japan, people only eat sushi on hot sunny days, so why people here are behaving as if sushi is the only thing which can stave off imminent death by starvation is something of a mystery.

Yes. Even as Iranians back home dream about the moment when the visa oficer will finally stamp their passport so they can rush over the ocean and join their homesick compatriots in Toronto, their couterparts from the native Canadian middle-class are attending seminars and applying for jobs  which will take them as far as possible from Canada.

Japan. Recently it seems that every non-immigrant Canadian I have met has either spent some years in Japan, or is trying to get there. Why? Noone knows. Can’t be the climate. Can’t be the sense of space and peaceful surroundings. Can’t be their politics and controversial attitudes towards women and foreigners (even worse than a woman). Not the currency either. That leaves the food (?) and the chance of immersion in a wholly different, pretty-looking culture while holding on to modern conveniences such as fast internet and designer brands.

Well, it has always been so. The pine dreams of the palm, and the palm of the pine, said some poet or other. And meanwhile, the sushi bars and immigration lawyers prosper.

“THE BLACK CLOUDS ARE DRIPPING WITH BLOOD”

So sings Gogoosh, the much-liked Iranian popstar. She was describing a weekend afternoon. “On Friday afternoons, the clouds drop blood instead of rain…”

Yes. Indeed. Iran, Canada, England, Scotland, Fridays or Sundays, weekends are bloody.

No matter how many activities we plan, there are still yawning chasms of grey time when the children seem to be crawling up our pants and in our hair, and the hours just won’t move on.

I used to think I was the only one  who couldn’t wait for weekends to be over. A secret breed of guilty mommies, we can’t stand weekends and the long hours full of kids and cooking. We count the minutes to blissful Monday morning, when, smiling joyfully, we can remove the kids from our noses and ship them off to schools and daycares, and spend eight glorious hours in quiet child-free existence, working, reading, eating, drinking, and generally breathing.

 So I was a bit miffed when I discovered, this Sunday morning, that I am not the only one whom the prospect of weekends fills with dread and despair.  We were at the breakfast table, the golden boy eating fried egg, and I orange marmalade on pita bread.

-Are we getting ready daycare?

-No darling. Daycare is closed today.

<disappointed tone> -Why is daycare closed everyday?

-It’s not every day! Just two days- Saturday and Sunday.

-Why? Why is daycare closed Saturday and Sunday?

-Well, because families can spend some time together (bad idea!), so they can rest (Not!), so that the daycare teachers can rest (closer to the truth)…Do you want to go to daycare?

-YES!

Ok, I got the point. I will not even attempt to compete with daycare teachers and daycare friends in terms of popularity and amusement potential. My son and I bore the socks off each other. If I prefer dull grey offices with lots of fast internet to his company, then it is only obvious and fair that he should prefer the bright smiles of his daycare companions to mine. Why am I so hurt?

CURTAINS

Iranians love curtains.

They love to talk about them, admire them, shop for them, change them every few months, discuss various types of hangings, analyse the match between the lacy “undercurtain” with the thick over-curtain,  contrast the kitchen curtain with the living-room curtain with the bedroom curtain, compare Turkish imported fabrics to Chinese to homemade, pre-sewn to made-to-order… There are huge malls and shopping complexes in Tehran devoted to selling nothing but curtains and curtain fabric and curtain accessories. And they are always full of women and men shopping for curtains.

The obsession with curtains comes from our paranoia with hiding our private life, I believe. I remember, when we moved from Britain to a new apartment in a suburb west of Tehran, one of the high points of my parents’ life was acquiring fancy beige blinds… they were so excited ! So happy that once they were drawn, it was virtually impossible for any prying eyes to see inside our apartment! They had a point: the huge blocks of apartments were laid out such that if the windows were left naked, all the residents of the opposing blocks living in the higher floors could easily see into the lower ones. And the world would obviously come to an end if that ever happened.

My father had bought the curtains for the room I occupied before my marriage, and sewed them himself, so that no pigoens or flies happening to fly past the room on the 18th floor of a high rise tower should happen to look in and glance at his daughter… they were beautiful, rose-pink with a gold floral design. He also bought the fabric and sewed the curtains for our first apartment after I married: also thick goldy fabric. My mother-in-law, not to be out-done, ordered the curtains for the larger apartment we moved into a few years later: absolutely horrible (no, they really were) thick lace curtains with a heavy gold embroidery. And different styles for the bedroom and the kitchen. I think she spent a month in the main Tehran fabric bazaar choosing and ordering those curtains, giving heart attacks to several worthy bazaaris in the process. Was it usual, you may ask, for the elders of a the family to choose and buy curtains for the youngsters? Well, no, and most of my peers delighted in what was for me the unbearable chore of buying curtains. (I didn’t mind furniture- most of the furniture in our house had been selected by myself.) And since it was unthinkable to live in an apartment without curtains, my parents and in-laws gladly undertook to curtain my place.

Well, I have lived without curtains for eighteen months now. My windows first looked out over the harbour and ocean, now over fields and playing grounds. Sun streams in from three o’clock in the afternoon, in the summer until eight in the evening. The lack of curtains gives a feeling of space and openness which can easily evade cramped student flats.

My mother wrote to me, describing my father busy selecting and sewing curtains for a new place in the country, where he is hoping to see his grandchildren play one day… I miss home, and my children will play there, some day soon. But I still won’t have curtains in my place.