Today, "M" at the office said the issues of {women} in my country shouldn’t weigh on my shoulders. Maybe it’s time to put that burden down for a while and see what kind of artist I want to be. I felt so free hearing that sentence, I had never thought I could be a woman artist, or even just an artist, independent of my being Iranian. Independent of what I call home.
The excitement and freedom from that sentence stayed with me. It walked with me on the way home—no, not home. On the way to the room I rent in a building. We reached the door of the building where my rented room is. I bent down to take off my boots. The excitement and euphoria of M’s sentence threw its weight onto my shoulders. It didn’t take off its shoes. It slid and draped itself over my back. I dragged it with me into the room. I changed out of my outdoor clothes. I lay down on the bed. It, still wearing the same clothes from the office and having walked with me all the way, lay down beside me on the bed.
My bed in the rented room is small. It doesn’t have enough room for the two of us. When it moved, its hands and feet dug into my body. It hurt to have it there. I thought, I’d be willing to share this bed with “T” or “SH.” They also move, but they don’t sink into me. Their movement doesn’t hurt.
We sat on two chairs at the round table by the window.
"I'm Ghazal. I had never met such freedom before."
"No, that's not it, Ghazal, with a Gha."
"No, that’s not it. It’s okay!"
It tried to pronounce my name correctly, but it didn’t work! It tried. Five times, six times, ten times! It just doesn’t work! We were happy with the familiarity though. We decided to be good friends and check in on each other from time to time. Maybe, if we had the chance, we’d even have deep conversations over tea. But we could never become one! Its whiteness hasn’t gotten under my skin yet!
I saw it off. It left through the window. It was free; it flew away. Like my book, The Bird Girl, who closes her eyes and flies away. When she closes her eyes, she sees the children of the world, she sees elephants, giraffes, mountains, fields, lambs! She sees everything. Everything except her feet. Feet that don’t walk! When I was making The Bird Girl and giving her flight, I forgot to ask her if she likes her feet. Do her feet sink into her body in bed? Do they hurt her? Has she managed to become one with them? Or have they just become good friends, and when she opens her eyes, she tells them stories of her travels?
"T" in Meins had asked his friend if, after all these years of being apart from his best friend, they could still fight over chat or video call. His friend said they could. "T" felt relieved. So, surely we too can get angry and have fights. You can’t feel close to someone if you can’t get mad at them! I didn’t say anything, but I felt relieved too!
I’m angry at this place; at this place and a few other places in the world! But can, for example, an Afghan refugee say to the embassy officer that the Taliban didn’t just sprout from nowhere? Or can a Palestinian refugee, whose absence is deeply felt, say that the budget for the aggressor government’s bombings should have finally run out by now, but it hasn’t?
I like the people here, they are kind, they want to pronounce my name correctly! "L" asked me why I didn’t get angry when something that applied to the rest of us didn’t apply to me because I’m Iranian. Or why I didn’t bat an eye when at a certain event at MIT, the curator lady acted a little racist toward me! She didn’t remember; it was exactly last week, on this very day, that when I said in response to a classmate’s question that I don’t really like it here, she immediately and with surprise asked: “Then why did you come here?” Today, I told her quietly that I am angry at this place. Not in her ear, but not very loudly either. Almost on the side! "L" is just very white. She’s not trying to be mean. She wants to say my name correctly. When I told her that many immigrants are angry at this place, she understood! She didn’t ask why they’re here. I think we will become good friends; maybe we’ll even take a trip to New York someday. But we’ll definitely book two single rooms at the hotel, I’ll take my shoes off at the door, and she’ll walk around the room in hers!