Cutting the Darkness
On April 23, I was supposed to give a presentation via Zoom about writing in the Diaspora.
For my presentation, even when I have to speak Farsi, I usually prepare myself. However, in Farsi, I don't need to find the meaning of the words. Is this because I am in exile and disconnected from my homeland?
I began researching the meaning of diaspora with Google.
Diaspora means:
1-To drive or send off to various directions.
2-Scatter.
3-To dispel, cause to vanish, vanish, to disappear from sight, especially very quickly become invisible.
4-To disappear, come to an end, be invisible.
5-To dissipate one's talent.
When I reached ‘to dissipate one's talent’ I stopped and logged off. I said to myself, 'This is neither about me nor does it apply to me.’
That is because I arrived permanently here in America in December 2007. Since then, I have not disappeared. I haven’t vanished. My talent hasn’t dissipated and I am not invisible.
I came here because I was in exile in my own country.
This is an unfortunate reality.
I am not in exile in my adopted home, but I was in my motherland.
I was born in a remote village without electricity or running water in the south of Iran, in the Persian Gulf.
My grandfather, along with a group of our family, built the remote village. He was only 16 years old when they escaped from their land because they did not want to take part in the killing of a 16-year-old girl. They did not remember exactly how many days or weeks they were on the run, but they could clearly recall when they arrived on the beach. Subsequently, they began building a village for themselves from scratch, a community close to Bushehr.
The girl was my grandfather’s twin sister, the only sister he had.
Her name was Fanous.
Fanous means light, lantern-lamp, safelight, and cutting the darkness’.
She fell in love with a stranger; some believed the man was not a human being, but rather a genie.
When I was born, they still spoke of her. I grew up with the stories but never knew what happened to her. It was a secret of our tribe.
I was told by my grandmother, as she was dying, while I stayed by her bed at night. She took my hand and said, “We saved her life, we took her with us but in the middle of our journey, she went off by herself with a stranger.” I am not sure if she was aware or if she was delusional”.
My mother, of course, had another version as did every woman from our tribe. But, there were three facts about her: she was gorgeous and rebellious, and she changed our tribe. Her story and life made a deep impact on the village.
I lived in the village for 10 years, which had a significant effect on my own life. I learned the basic rule of my life from that village: If you are not happy, you should move. When you move, you are responsible for your life and the life of those whom you care about. You must build your village and care for everybody who lives with you.
You have to find your own way.
Don't waste your time and wait for help. The first person who can really help you is yourself. There is no miracle to that. The miracle is your effort, work, and interest in learning new things.
Be present wherever you are.
During those years I learned to use my imagination. That era was life's most exciting, lovely, and prosperous period.
The culture and people educated me to cope with future disasters. We had a special ritual for natural catastrophes: ‘dancing and singing.
Later in life, when I faced political miseries and social tragedies, those rituals helped me tremendously.
We stood up to death with life...
I learned to express myself whenever I was, whenever that may be. We didn't hide. Telling the truth was our nature.
I will continue writing about one of the most famous rituals next Sunday. In this ritual, we dance and sing the poems of the greatest poet, Khayyam. Khayyam lived 1000 years ago. He was not known as a poet during his life. He was an astronomer and philosopher.
To be continued…
Source: Substack