sharing my beloved tehran
When I think of Iran, I think of turquoise blue shallow pools in courtyards, gardens full of fruit trees and the most aromatic roses, geometric patterns, tea, mountains of herbs, and kind and generous people. My Tehran growing up in the 70’s was nothing like the Tehran my American friends knew about when my family moved here to Minneapolis in 1978. It has taken me over thirty years to navigate between two cultures that are so foreign to each other. Two cultures so misunderstood by one another. Two cultures that would so benefit from learning from each other.
Which one do I belong to? The question that has permeated every decision I’ve made, consciously or unconsciously.
Today I feel a deep obligation as a mother to write. To share what I’ve seen and experienced. It was never an intention as I am a private person. However, the world is demanding that we connect in order for us to understand each other and to create relationships across continents that help heal this beautiful land we call earth. Motherhood is a deep obligation of creating bonds, now I reach out to a larger world to emphasize that this bond is a necessity in order for our larger family to survive.
John O’Donohue talks about “sometimes awkward situations, problems, or difficulties are really disguised opportunities for growth.” For over two decades I did not want to be stuck between my problem of bi-cultural living, especially two cultures that seem to stand on the opposite sides of the spectrum, opposite ends of the world. I didn’t really want to grow and indeed I did see everything as a problem.
As a young student and a professional I was not interested in finding a bridge between my two worlds. However, when my children were born, I faced what seemed at the time the important decision of choosing between cultures. In time, I realized I didn’t have to choose one or the other. Rather, I proceeded to notice the best of two worlds, both for my children and ultimately for myself. This led me to stay true to what I had experienced in both cultures and to defend both traditions by highlighting details that made them important to community building and gathering people around common interest. Community = common + unity.
And so I left my beloved Tehran two days ago for the second time in twenty-five years. A culture deep in ancient wisdom, yet strangled by so many outsiders interested in its’ immense wealth of natural resources. If I were to enter the political scene of America and Iran in my dialogue, I would get stuck in the over six decades long of a questionable relationship. Everything that has been hypothesized, strategized, and philosophized about this relationship by most educated people have proven to be wrong in my opinion. There are few people in academia who have been able to tackle this troubled relationship. But maybe, just maybe regular citizens of this world can highlight why there is so much animosity between America and Iran__or is there any animosity at all? So, I now write as a citizen of two beloved cultures and will try to show what I’ve seen in these two worlds through my writings.
I have a heavy heart as I write, because life is unfairly harsh on Iranians today. Yet I want to tell the world how Iranians are surviving and are committed to living a joyous life regardless of their economic and political circumstances.
