The world begins and ends in Amrika. For my parents, that would be “um-REE-kah,” the Farsi-infused pronunciation of America. This was my family’s motto when we joined the multitude of transplanted souls who traded the familiarity of home for an embryonic opportunity of a better life. The phrase can be perceived negatively, suggesting a myopic America distant from the rest of the world. However, we were the uprooted, the mythical “huddled masses” and “the homeless, tempest-tossed” engraved on Lady Liberty. Our definition was born from a gold-plated dream that drew millions of immigrants to the United States. The dream—and its sometimes ugly underbelly—is always different, but formy parents it meant building the life that we could not have back in Iran.

More than anything, I wanted your recognition. I wanted to catch the twinkle of pride in your eyes (like we used to catch fireflies, remember?). You always had such high expectations. Mom never liked it, but I did.  Your limitless ambition flows in my blood, flooding dreams of daring scope that never run dry. I was busy growing up waiting for the day to make you proud. But you started fading away. Bit by bit, in a painfully subtle and heartbreaking decline. There was no beginning, middle, or end to your story. Just a cloudy, untouchable blur.

Like the same milky cloud that hung in the corners of your blank stare.

It mocked me every time I searched for a proud glimmer in your eyes. You looked at me, and somehow looked past me. I wanted to tell you so many things, but none of it ever reached you. Milestones came and went, from high school graduation, college graduation, an International Baccalaureate diploma, and even a Fulbright scholarship to Spain. Not a single atom of your soul stirred with any of these endeavors. You couldn’t help it. I understand. Your spirit had already flown away and your mind was not far behind. But I held on to your emaciated shell. I shared these past years with you, yet without you. Close to you, yet so far away.

You don’t remember what happened, do you?

An invisible thief stole your beautiful mind. Dementia robbed you from us. It wasted away your identity and left behind a living carcass. It stole everything, your memory, your words, and your mobility. Your final protest was to stop eating. The toll on your body was horrifying. Something had to be done. I never imagined we would send you to an assisted living home, but the decision was made against my will. Dumping parents into nursing homes is a cruel American habit, not an Iranian one. Yet, here we were sending our grandfather away. It broke my heart but I learned to accept the decision. But the question still haunts me.

Did you think we abandoned you?

You went away and never came back. It was the best place we could find, but at an overwhelming cost of over $4,000 a month and an hour and a half away from us. We visited you religiously, taking you out weekly to what was once your favorite Persian restaurant, Mirage. Until even that you couldn’t do. The deterioration continued. Some days were worse than others, but the decline was inevitable. Even as I was getting ready to leave for Spain, I was still hoping to catch one lucid moment with you on my last visit. Just one second with life in your eyes, for a fleeting chance of leaving behind a tiny footprint of pride in your webbed memories.

It never happened.

Fast-forward eight months. It’s March and a roller coaster of a year has gone by living abroad. My research was coming along, I had my first taste of Las Fallas, the mid-year Santander presentation was an absolute success, and my 23^rd birthday was just around the corner. Not to mention the lovely Iranian New Year. It was the perfect week to come back and visit Atlanta.

You were waiting for me, weren’t you?

The moment I landed, your health suddenly took a nosedive. It was a bittersweet moment. Your body was finally giving up, but at least I could be there by your side. In that week, I visited you only once (I hope you forgive me for that). There you were as before, a brittle pile of skin and bones framing a pale, death-sunken face. By now, I was used to this image. What I wasn’t expecting was the way your mouth was twisted open, gasping relentlessly, as if breathing non-existent air. An oxygen mask barely held in place behind your ears scraped up and down the bridge of your nose with every labored breath. Over and over again. It left a scar that couldn’t scab. You were slowly asphyxiating.

What were we doing to you?

I came in expecting to be sad, or maybe even happy, but all I could feel was rage. This wasn’t peace this was hell. From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of your arm. There it was, the orange do not resuscitate bracelet dangling on your wrist. Suddenly I was sick to my stomach.

It was like a cold, cruel joke.

Why did we hold on to you for so long? A great man like you deserved a dignified, more merciful death. You deserved an end, finality, a conclusion, not these years in limbo.  Thanks to modern medicine, we suspended your life in mid-air, like a comma hanging at the end of a sentence. But we had finally exhausted all of our options. From hospital to hospice, all that we had now was that orange halo circling your wrist, with three letters that spelled the secret wish hidden in all of our hearts.

I’m going to tell you the painful truth. Can you forgive me?

I hate to admit it. It hurts to confess. I’m guilty. I’m sorry. I wished for your death. Not just then and there, but so many times before. I wished, I pleaded, I begged, I even prayed. I wanted the suffering to end, most of all for you, but also for mama-Ezzi, for my uncles, for my mom. You weren’t living; you were merely existing. And even in existence, you were in a different world. Untouchable, like a ghost, but cursed with the human capacity of suffering and pain. It was an existence that we couldn’t terminate. We had to wait. You had to wait.  All these years of waiting for what? A morphine-induced stupor.

Why couldn’t have death come sooner, quicker, or more peacefully?

Why did it have to include this silent suffering, this constant pain, and this wasting away of a proud, successful man into a bed-ridden, hollow man?

When your mind was melting to nothingness, that was the first time you died; now you were dying again. You were suffering, or maybe you had suffered all along. I suddenly had an overwhelming desire to rip off your oxygen mask. The emotions that were surfacing shook my entire foundation right down to its very core. It was a blow so deep that I questioned my future in medicine. One day, I will take an oath to preserve life.  But where do you draw the line between preserving life and acknowledging and accepting death?

That was the last time I saw you. I went back to mama-Ezzi’s house and waited, mentally and emotional contorted. The doctors said it would be any day now. They were wrong. Your body held on. The entire week, until the day came that I had to go back. I could have changed my flight. I could have delayed it. I wanted to be there when it happened, but you didn’t.

Why?

Part of me wanted to return to Spain, back to my other life, while the other part of me wanted to stay, to be there for the funeral, to comfort mama-Ezzi. I was torn. All I wanted was to run away. The fact was that we didn’t know when it would happen; it could be another week, another two weeks, or even a month. The thought of it made me shudder. It was decided that I should go back as planned. I didn’t resist; I went back. On the plane, all I kept thinking about was what mom said before I left. “Faz never gave up, in anything. His determination was unreal, and maybe this was his way of fighting to the end.”

I landed in Madrid, but missed my train to Valencia. I sat in the train station all day, numb.

What were you fighting for?

I finally made it home, exhausted and broken. After over 16 hours of traveling and being more than 7,000 km away from it all, the past week felt like a bad dream. Snickers was home to greet me, blissfully unaware of everything. I couldn’t help but smile at her wagging tail and her squealing barks of joy. I had managed not to cry throughout the entire ordeal, waiting to get home where no one could see me and cry myself to sleep.  Seeing her made my day. That night I fell asleep, hard and fast, without tears or dreams.

You died the very next day.

You were waiting for me to leave, weren’t you?

I’ll never understand why, but I know you are finally resting in peace.

I miss you, I love you, and I will always make you proud.

Yasi

August 10^th 1925 – March 30^th 2010, at age 84

August 1995: When we first landed in America, all thanks to my grandfather.

I’m always looking for feedback, so please feel free to leave comments, positive and negative.

Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=I94Y_MImR2s

Fulbright Santander Presentation March 19th 2010

It was a torturous decision, and the fact that neither Xaq nor David (the two other Fulbright researchers in Valencia) were going to attend the meeting did not make it any easier.  Xaq said it best: this was the one time that Valencia was the center of España.

Falleras during a parade. Photo thanks to Eliana.

The city’s transformation is electrifying, a one-of-a-kind feast for the senses.  Streets lighting up like Christmas trees, tents turning up at every corner to tempt you with churros con chocolate and buñelos de calabaza, the papier-mâché parts and pieces of each Falla materializing into towering displays of art, and the distinct smell of petardos (firecrackers) following you everywhere.

If these weren’t enough, every single day at exactly 14:00, el ayuntamiento (city hall) erupts in a deafening yet mind-blowing pyrotechnic extravaganza known as la Mascletá.

Day by day, the anticipation builds, until the entire city is pulsating with energy.  Intoxicating, palpable energy.  Fuel for the grand finale, when the city lights ablaze and the Fallas meet their inevitable fate.  Every single Falla is burnt down, with the exception of one.  We’re talking about an entire years worth of work, along with hundreds of thousands of euros, burns to ashes to mark the end of this month-long festival.  That included the Falla that won 2^nd place, costing a whopping 900.000 euros ($1.3 million). Crisis? What crisis?

From this:

la Falla de Nou Campanar: el beso (the kiss)

To this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRUlRqPqhQI
La cremá, the burning. Video thanks to elmundillodevalencia.com

In the end, I decided to commit to the mid-year meeting in Santander.  As much as I wanted to be there for those final momentous days, I had to stand by the months of research I’ve been fanatically working on.  My schedule would put yours to shame (or justify that I am complete lab rat…). Nights, weekends, and even holidays at times.  The meeting in Santander would give me the chance to not only show case all my hard work, but also share the exciting research here in Dra. Ramón-Cueto’s laboratory to the other Fulbrighters.

I could see it now. A solid PowerPoint presentation filled with graphs, pictures, videos of the paraplegic rats recovering, flash animations, and all the bells and whistles.

But wait, there is just once catch.

The presentation can only be 5-minutes long.

5-Minutes?!?! ¡¡¡¡@#$@%#$!!!

Yes, that would be my reaction, with a giant sweat drop, jaw dropping to the floor while unleashing a river of tears before falling over flat on my face.  Complete with a “woosh” and a loud “thud”, anime-style.

How could I pack the past 6 months into a 5-minute presentation?

I may be slightly exaggerating, but it was such a grueling, frustrating task.  But after some time dissecting my presentation down to a miserable skeleton, I had done the impossible: a 5-minute long presentation.

Arriving in Santander, I was greeted with a lovely 5-star hotel with a mesmerizing beachfront view.  I shared my room with Alex, the Fulbrighter in Granada whom I met up with during my trip to Alicante back in December.  I thought that perhaps now things were starting to get better, until they pass out the list of presenters.

Guess whose name doesn’t appear?

Yep, that would be me.  I was almost convinced that the Commission had some sort of personal vendetta against me…

I pointed it out to Aitor, and as always, he quickly got it fixed.  Aitor and Paula are both wonderful and the Commission is lucky to have them.  The presentation was almost a complete success.  I say almost because somehow, as my wonderful luck would have it, a spelling error still managed to creep its despicable way into my 5-minute presentation.

Sigh.

For those of you who didn’t make it to the mid-year meeting, and for my friends and family back home, I will try and post the presentation in my next post, minus the spelling mistake of course.

Here is a sneak peak of my presentation’s grande finale:

David and Xaq at the Calle Sueca falla in Russafa. With the magic of photoshop, YOU too can pretend to be at fallas!

Burning kerosene lamps.  Mona Lisa’s smile.  The black of asphalt.  Salty, burnt corn.  Water running in dirty streams.

Meaningless to you, but these are the momentary sparks.  They ignite memories that are almost alive, almost as real as they once were.   I think of fireworks, exploding candles showering down on a midnight stage.  Except without the boom and rat-teh-tad-tad.  These memories are always silent, an almost deadly silence.  Mute, colorful flashbacks.

I really needed one this week, a trip back in time to snuff out the feeling of homesickness congesting in my throat.  You see, this is the week before Norooz, the Iranian New Year.  Which is also this first-born Aries’ birthday.  March 21^st, 1987.  Since I couldn’t find comfort in daydreaming of the past, I decided to lose myself the best way I knew how, with an extravagantly large mehmonee. Meh-moo-nee.  Persian dinner party.

(I wanted to make this post about the A-B-C’s of Norooz, but someone else already did a great job explaining it here: In Search of the Haft Sin. Read it, study it, then come back and read the rest.)

This is what a Haft Sin SHOULD look like.

Let me start off by saying that I am ashamed of my Haft Sin.  It is a disgrace.  One dead fish, my Sabzi is struggling to grow, and I’m still missing a couple of key items that are next to impossible to find in Valencia.  All Persians that are reading this would agree when I say that it was dahatee.  English for ghetto.  Not sure the equivalent in Spanish, but perhaps, gitano, in the villagey-out-of-date-country-negative way.

This was my pitiful attempt...where is the Sabzi? Senjed? Sumac?

The Haft Sin was a mess, so I decided that the menu for my mehmonee would make up for it.  It included all of the following:

1. Kashk-e Bademjan (Eggplant and whey)
2. Dolmeh (Stuffed grape leaves)
3.  Kotlet (Meat patties)
4. Salad Olivieh (Chicken, egg, potato salad)
5. Naan-o Paneer-o Sabzi (Cheese & herbs)
6. Koresht Fesenjoon (Ground walnut, chicken, and pomegranate stew)
7. Koresht Ghaymeh (Yellow split-pea stew)
8. Koresht Ghormeh Sabzi (Herb and meat stew)
9. Salad Shirazi (Cucumber, tomato, onion and mint salad)
10. Mast-o-Khiar (Yogurt, mint and cucumber)
11. Kebab koobideh (Ground beef kebabs)
12. Joojeh Kebab (Chicken kebabs)
13. Fereni (Rice custard dessert)
14. Sholeh Zard (Saffron rice dessert)
15. Polo (Persian rice)

I cooked all of the above, logging in more than 16+ hours of non-stop cooking along with almost 150 Euros of grocery shopping.  An almost impossible feat that required the (hopefully voluntarily) enlistment of my dear roommate Eliana, who had to endure two days of demeaning chopping, peeling, and cutting.

The 25-course dinner. Don't you just love the gorgeous table ware?

From top to bottom: Kebab koobideh (Ground beef kebabs) with grilled tomatoes, Joojeh Kebab (Chicken kebabs), and Koresht Ghaymeh (Yellow split-pea stew)

All of this, and I still managed to leave out Sabzi-Polo-Mahi (Herbs, fish, and rice), which is THE dish to cook for Norooz.  How bad is that?  It’s like cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and forgetting the turkey. Yea, it is that bad.

This was the kitchen when I started the impossible dinner

As much as I tried to make it as authentic as possible, for the most part it was an epic fail. I made a valiant effort and I know my friends enjoyed it.  But it’s a good thing that none of them are Persian.

Here is the video from that night…enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6mzpGtPG1M

And by inferior, I am referring to facebook status updates.  Ah yes, facebook, also known as the ultimate expression of procrastination.

My blog can go untouched for months, my twitter for weeks, but if no new recent activity shows up on facebook please don’t hesitate to call the police and file a missing persons report.  I know it’s the awful truth, but let’s be honest here, sometimes it is much easier to make a status update than to write a coherent, thoughtful blog post.

However, the blogging lords should have mercy on my poor soul considering the insane amount of work that I have been doing at the lab.  Allow me to demonstrate that I am a constructive procrastinator by using the graph below produced via destructive procrastination:

You too can waste time by making your very own pointless chart here at crappygraphs.com

I rest my case.  So let us begin catching up on yesterday.  Brace yourself.

December

Couchsurfing in Alicante

Dinner with our host Jose and the Couchsurfers.

My host and personal guide of Alicante, Jose. Hands down one of my best couchsurfing experiences.

I think you call this a fallera outfit? Jose, you make a very attractive woman. =)

A weekend in Paris

Tour Eiffel - a damn good photo, thank you.

I visited my friend Colas in Paris. A little history here, we met two years ago in Granada, a chance encounter playing volleyball. Even more interesting is the fact that he also spent a year in Valencia as an Erasmus. Who knew we would meet up again. Colas, the volleyball court awaits you in Valencia!

Notre Dame at night. Breathtaking.

Christmas in Moraira

My 2nd cousin, Maya, "playing" with Snickers. Hehe poor dog, she didn't say a word the whole time!

Maya decorating Snickers with lovely stickers. By the way, can you believe that it's christmas, and I'm in short sleeves? I love it here. Eat your heart out Atlanta!

The group picture: My first cousin Jamie, his Spaniard daughter in law Raquel, me, his son Bahi, and their two kids Maya and Lucas.

January

Noche vieja en El Villar

My two Palomas and a bag full of grapes. The tradition goes that the 12 seconds before midnight, you have to eat 12 grapes. Is it possible? Yes. Grape, skin, seeds, and all.

Paloma's pueblo is famous for their wine, and here we are posing next to the famous botello de vino de Villar. ¡Olé!

Katha’s farewell party

My German room mate, Katha, finished her Erasmus stay in January. We miss her a lot, but she will be visiting us during Fallas...very soon. ¡Nos vemos pronto guapa!

Concert in Gandía

Juan was kind enough to invite me to a lovely and intimate concert in Gandía, featuring Rebeca Jiménez y Vicky Gastelo. You can check out his blog here at bajapordiversion.blogspot.com. I wouldn't have met Juan if it weren't for Colas. Six degrees of separation, always.

February

El Circo de Valencia

Alejandro y yo and my LITTLE FRIEND at the Circus. ¡Qué mona! Alejandro is one of the Patrones with the fundación that helps finance our research at the lab. Check out our website here: www.firsn.com

VI Circuito Ruralcaja

In green, Héctor, my NEW coworker at the lab, and in yellow mocking me, his friend Joan. Two very cool Valencianos. We're signed up for a race every month until the end of the year, running about 6 - 8 km. If it is not obvious from my facial expression in this picture, I lost this race by 1 minute or so. As they say...¡¡Joder!!

And finally, I would like to sign off this post with the following quote:

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.  ~Spanish Proverb

]]> http://www.whereisyasmin.com/2010/03/the-art-of-keeping-up-with-yesterday/feed/ 2 http://www.whereisyasmin.com/2009/11/yasmin-katha-barcelona/ http://www.whereisyasmin.com/2009/11/yasmin-katha-barcelona/#comments Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:13:49 +0000 Yasmin Rahmani http://www.whereisyasmin.com/?p=329 Yea, I know.  I’m running out of witty titles for my blog entries, but this was just too hard to resist.  For those of you who don’t recognize it, I’m referring to Woody Allen’s film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona.  I watched it before coming to Spain along with a couple of Almodóvar’s films as part of my so-called preparation for Spain.   I was sadly disappointed when my visit to Barcelona didn’t include a steamy polyamorous love triangle.  I mean, I thought all Spanish men were Bohemian Lotharios with private planes and psychopathic ex-wifes?

Damn, but regardless, our trip to Barcelona was wonderful.  We stayed with Antonio near La Rambla (better known as the Freak Show).  Antonio and Amin, both Fulbrighters in Barcelona, gave us a magnificent tour of the city. I couldn’t list all the places we visited because there were so many.  I even saw my first Symphony!  Blake, another Fulbrighter in Barcelona, is the assistant conductor so he had free tickets and was kind enough to invite us Saturday night.  After the amazing performance, we all went to a Persian restaurant, probably the only one I’ll be going to for a long time since there are none in Valencia.

My favorite moment, besides all of the breathtaking architecture, was our visit to Rafa’s bar.  This crazy old man made the best Sangria’s in the world.  Great times.

Mezcla fatal: 90% alcohol...10% vino

I’m definitely going to visit Barcelona again because two days is just not enough to see all that the city has to offer.

Photos from Barcelona:

Of course this year, I was sure that I would have to forego turkey, considering I’m in Spain and all.

Can you spot the not-so-typical dishes?

Well, I was wrong.  Thanks to Xaq and his lovely wife Inés, I was lucky enough to enjoy a delicious Thanksgiving meal here in Valencia.  Xaq is a Fulbrighter as well and he was kind enough to invite David and I to dinner on Saturday. I added a little touch of Irani to their thanksgiving spread with three appetizers,  kashk-e-bademjan (egg-plant and cream), salad-e-shirazi (tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and lemon), and mast-o-khiar (yogurt and cucumber).

To Xaq, Inés, and her family, thank you for a wonderful thanksgiving dinner.

Thanksgiving - Spanish style

CouchSurfing.com is essentially the same thing, but on an international scale.  Part vagabonding phenomenon and part hospitality exchange network, you can offer or surf couches.  Their slogan is as follows:

Participate in Creating a Better World, One Couch At A Time
CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance and facilitate cultural understanding.

In my opinion, it is a wonderful way to travel because you can meet some amazing people.  So far, we’ve hosted 4 guests and surfed 1 couch.   I’ll be adding to my surfing list in two weeks with a trip to Alicante with another CouchSurfer.

My favorite couchsurfer so far has to be Francis Tapon, who is a professional hiker, author, and world traveler.  He has published one book, is writing another, and has a 10 year plan to travel the world.  Currently he has visited 70 countries and is one of the few individuals in the world that can say that he has traveled more than one third of the world (38% to be exact)!  Pretty impressive, huh?

Here is his personal website and travel blog, www.francistapon.com, which I highly recommend.

Now, time for some pictures!

Sin embargo, hay una ocasión especial para escribir esta entrada.  El hombre en la foto anterior se llama Josep, y él juega un papel muy importante en la siguiente historía mía.  ¿Dónde puedo comenzar?

Para empezar, he hecho un error fatal con mi tarjeta de residencia. Para aquellos que no lo sepan todavía, mi visado de entrar a España es válido solo durante tres meses, entre 15 de Agosto a 15 de Noviembre.  Entre este tiempo, tengo que obtener una tarjeta de residencia. Solamente con esa tarjeta puedo quedar aquí un año entero, y para obtenerla hay un proceso larguísima.  En principio, estuve esperando para mi certificado de residencia, un documento oficial que la Comision Fulbright tiene que mandarme. Recibí este documento 19 de septiembre (por favor, note las fechas vale?), pero con el cambio de mi piso, tuve que esparar de nuevo para otro certificado.

Lo recibí 6 de octubre y el 1 de noviembre fui a la oficina de extraneros para obtener mi tarjeta de residencia.

3 de noviembre, la oficina me llamó y me dijo que no puedo obtener mi tarjeta de residencia y a partir de 15 de noviembre mi visado esta caducado.  ¡Tengo que regresar a EE.UU. y obtener otro visado de estudiante!

Me asusté. Me morí de miedo.

Lo que pasó es eso.  Debo que empezar este proceso en mis primeras 30 días en España.  Por consiguiente, ANTES DE 15 DE SEPTIEMBRE.

Llamé a la Comisión Fulbright y ellos me dijeron no hay nada que ellos pueden hacer para mi.

Seguramente, hubiera perdido mi Fulbright beca.

La unica opción fue a ir a la oficina.  Yo fui alla y finalmente hablé con Josep, unos de los directores.  No sé como puedo explicar su ayuda, pero sin él ahora mismo me hubiera tenido que regresar a Atlanta. Estoy muy agradecido, porque no sé lo que hubiera hecho.

Josep, si estas leyendo mi blog, me gustaría decirte eso: ¡MUCHAS GRACIAS!  (y ojalá que puedas entender mi español)

Pues, ya.  Estoy todavía en España gracias a Josep.  Al final de este mes, voy a tener mi última cita para obtener mi DNI.  Hasta entonces, voy a intentar portarme bien.

PD.  Si alguien desea corregirme en caso de haber dicho algo equivocado, que me corrija, ¿vale?