there was one and there was none, once upon a time 

a glance in times of war

Stories used to start with once upon a time and یکی بود یکی نبود
These days it seems like I can not start anything without at least a few seconds of screaming and repeating what the actual fuck for about 3 to 5 times

I have often wondered if humanity has always been this fucking horrible, or have we gotten worse? Of course, history books don’t make it any better; it seems like, at one point or another, we just can not prevent ourselves from going in circles of violence, misery, and absolute fuckassery.

Excuse my potty mouth, I am dealing with a sense of doom that has been growing since I can remember, it has grown through potty training and learning the alphabet, all the way to my late 20s. I think I was one way or another born hating this world. Being a girl in Iran was enough to make anything and everything absolutely a horrible time. I was lucky tho, I had my mom who raised me on the epics of Shahnameh, stories of Molavi, and so much more. I spent most of my days making stories, reading stories, or drawing them.

My imagination and love for storytelling have been the crutch of my existence, it carried me through depression, puberty, and now an absolute mess of a life. It’s still hard for me to believe that Iran is at war. No matter what I do, it seems like the wall of my defence mechanism has decided to halt all operations. I think, truly, I have no idea or tool to deal with everything that is happening. A fascist government so inhuman and evil has unleashed absolute hell and misery upon its people for decades, various versions of its image reflected in the powers of the West and East. Like parasitic maggots, they wiggle upon each other, their disgusting sliminess spreading, and the horrible stench of their rotting souls clogging the air. 

Every other day I receive messages from my friends here in the west, hi, how are you? Or some version of it. I usually type hey, I'm ok. How are you? Truth is, I have no idea how I feel. How are you coping or holding up? I answer by being absolutely delusional and disassociating. 

I try to focus on things I can control, like trying and failing 100 times to talk to my parents back in Iran, to hear their voices for at least a few seconds so I can calm myself down. I know my mom is having the hardest time with no internet. A couple of days ago, when finally the line connected for a bit, she says: They took everything from me, and now my only happiness has also been taken away. Her only happiness in these times was calling my sister and me. For her to see our faces and voices was enough. 

But I know they are trying to live as much as they can. She has cleaned the house as per the ritual of Nowruz. She says they try to avoid going to dinner parties and hanging out at night because of the bombings.  She has gotten a haircut, and she shows me her nails that she painted dark red. It’s been close to a month since I was able to see them online. My dad is in his usual calmness. He tells us not to worry that he went through war when he was a teenager, that he had to leave his city and home, and therefore, he is not fazed by the terror on the streets and in the skies. I know it's his mask of bravado, put on for me to make me calmer. 

Still, these few minutes of hearing them resisting so diligently, so strongly to live life no matter the circumstances, make my numbing cynicism disappear for a while. 

So then I have to deal with the raging beast of fury and anger and the unfathomable grief that is choking me. 

Other than crying and rage applying to the endless list of job applications and reading rejection letters, I have taken up yoga and pilates at home. 
So every other day, if the goddesses of spring bless me with sunshine, I try to focus on perfecting my downward-facing dog and add some very much needed muscle to my biceps. The burn in my body helps shake the frozen sluggishness of the terror constantly living in my skin.
So one workout video at a time, I take to practice resisting this impossible feeling of the world being torn apart. I try to read, write and create. To put part of my soul and love that I have for living into something that might have an impact on someone else. 
To be present and hold myself authentically in everyday life. 

I go back to reading Shahnamahe. The Book of Kings is a series of epics full of stories of war, love, resistance, and betrayals. If I have learned anything from these stories of kings that have risen and fallen over and over again, it is that nothing lasts forever. 
I try to find pockets of hope in the lines of his poetry and tell myself that this book has lasted centuries of oppression, and then Ferdowsi, the author, surely has done something right, that I should believe him that after a long starless night comes the dawn and light. 
I try to practice being human. I am afraid that witnessing so much pain and violence has been slowly chipping away at my humanity. I take the disgust and horror I feel when I see the brutal inhumanization of my people, and cling to it to make sure I don’t come anywhere close to echoing anything like it. I try to hold empathy and compassion even when my fellow Iranians are spewing absolute nonsense, telling myself it’s okay, they are hurting too. 

The labour of informing, debating, and the constant policing of what I am allowed to feel or think has taken a toll on me. I swear I have more grey hairs now than a month ago. I try to let myself be human, to have empathy for myself too.


Every few days, I talk to Yara. She is in Lebanon, and without even trying, we hold an understanding via a few WhatsApp messages. With her, there’s no pressure to adjust myself or my emotions; I can just be. She just gets it. Unfortunately for both of us, the bond that we built, partially on what we share culturally and in discovering the differences between us, has always had shared roots of oppression and violence. And now it has given way to sharing a deep, deep pain. 

It doesn’t diminish what connects us tho. The love we hold for our people, for our land, for the cultural parts we have shared for centuries, and the differences we love about each other, for our unwavering desire for freedom and liberation, and for our hate for hypocrisy and bigotry. 

I tell myself every night before going to sleep that I shall dream of calmness and beauty, I shall broaden my imagination of liberation and love in my sleep. Most days, I wake up with the echoing sounds of bombs I have never heard, ringing in my ear.

The pain of being far away from a bleeding land has made me realise how much I had already given up and rejected without knowing. How much was taken away from me that even the dream of a free Iran at one point had become blurry and unattainable. 

But seeing the courage of my people, like the courage of so many all over the world that are resisting their oppressors every day, risking their lives and living so passionately, making sure that hope is present at every dinner table, has taken the feeling of self-loathing and self-pity, and has made me kinder to my Iran and myself. If I do not try to resist this unbearable pressure of nihilism, then I am betraying my land and its people. 

I feel like the crow in every Iranian story. At the end of each story, we say: " The story has come to an end, but the crow has not reached its home. (قصه ما به سر رسید کلاغه به خونش نرسید)

I have no choice but to keep going, to read the next chapter and the next tale in the hopes of the crow, in the hopes that I, as well, someday finally reach my home.