The Passage of Time
As I sit by my open window in the early morning, I look out to the sky which is tinged pink from the rising sun. The air is cool. The rose bush nestles by the window languorously, as if enjoying the start of the new day. Birds perch on it and on the dogwood tree. They cheerfully chirp away. I look out into space, dreaming, going back into time. I see my young self in the same stance, in my early thirties, slim, straight and strong, staring out of the same window. The skies were angry and grey. The rain was pelting harshly against the window panes. We had escaped a revolution in our war-torn country. We were pulled by our roots and flung haphazardly into a land not our own, shocked with the onslaught of war and in a daze. I was bewildered as I stood there then. How had we ended up here? Why were we scattered amidst the continents? Our family, our friends were not around us any longer. It was the end of a way of life. Gone was the easy life. Gone was the pampered life. Gone was innocence. I was a young mother in my early thirties then. My children were eleven and ten. The shock of the past year had traumatized us. The unfriendliness of our new neighbors bewildered us. Except for three neighbors who welcomed us so kindly and graciously, most were awful! One man rang our doorbell. When I opened the door, he stood there and told me that we were a disgrace to the neighborhood! “But you don’t know us!” I exclaimed. Another rubbed dog feces all over our front door and into the keyhole; and as if that was not enough, she did the same to our car! Another parked his car in front of our house. He had a sign on his side window of Mickey Mouse sticking his middle finger out. F— Iran, it said. It took a lot of self-control to ignore this day in, day out. My children were taunted and goaded at school and at play. “And you call us the disgrace of the neighborhood?” I wondered in despair? We were silent. We were afraid to open our mouths. We, and many like us, were the victims of Carter’s statement of the lack of human rights in Iran. The Shah was overthrown. The country was hurled into the dark ages with the Islamic movement because of Khomeini and his ilk. We had escaped, but many were not as fortunate as us. Many atrocious and heinous acts were committed in the name of religion, yet nobody blinked an eye or made a comment. For us who came here, we became the brunt of the anger of the American people. The high gas prices, the long lines at the fuel stations, and later on the hostage situation made life for us almost intolerable! Somehow the country felt that we were at fault for some reason. Yes, times were unpleasant and extremely difficult. I truly believed there was no sun in this sky, only dark angry clouds. The years passed. Instead of being the genteel young woman I used to be, I hardened. I no longer feared speaking out for myself and my family. I no longer cried in my pillow in despair. I became strong because I did not know how to defend my children and myself otherwise. I became like a tigress protecting my family. No one had a right to hurt the ones I love! No one! I was fair, yet I was firm! A boy hit my son badly in school, infecting his breast, because we came from Iran. I was at the principal’s office objecting angrily and passionately! My little girl came home crying because the teacher told her to go back from whence she came from. I marched into the classroom with smoke shooting up my nostrils. By the time I was done with that teacher, she was quaking, not me! Was that really me, I wondered? What happened to the timid lady that was there before? I entered the fire a marshmallow and emerged tempered steel. Life experiences gave me no other alternatives. My children are in their fifties now. When did they get to be this age? Where have my little boy and girl gone to? When did I become a grandmother of two grandsons, one is in his mid-twenties and the other almost twenty? I lean back on my chair and answer myself. Life, that’s what happened. Time marches on and does not stop for anyone. I still live in the same house. Some of my neighbors have gone away in one form or the other. I entered this neighborhood a young mother and I am now one of the elders of the neighborhood. I do everything much slower, so slowly that my younger self that still dwells within me, impatiently scolds. Come on! Come on, step on it! I smile to myself and wonder where has time flown? I was just too busy living this fleeting life to realize it. I do not need to step on it. I can lean back and enjoy it. What is my hurry now? I have raised my children, lived my life. Now, all I have to do is sit back and reminisce. The sun has risen. It has lit the morning sky. The birds continue warbling their joyful tunes. I get up to pour myself another cup of tea.