Lucky Not to Be a Millenial

We used to get bored.  I mean bored in one afternoon when parents were taking a nap and we had to stay quiet and wait for 5PM so the kids' program would start which would last for an hour, after several days of summer break before our summer classes of English, tennis, swim, and painting would start. I mean bored when it was too hot to go to the backyard to play with our scooters and bikes. And then, we would improvise. The basement was a refuge if we could maneuver the tiny lizards zooming away as soon as the giants of our feet stepped down the stairs.  There was a pingpong table, paint brushes and oil paints and painting boards, there was a small mosaic water pool with a few fish swimming around, there was the plants in the flower boxes, there was a bed to sit on and read a book or play with my sisters.  Or we would just walk around and imagine and ponder and dream of far far away lands and animals and planets and deep sea ventures. We got bored but too late and the boredom would last far too short but long enough to dream. I  mean bored not at any moment without a smart phone or wifi. We were lucky to have born in the age that it was not easy to get bored!

To Build Anew

Europe

Greece

An ancient city by the Mediterranean Sea

And old house made of bricks and mortars atop a steep gravel pathway

A small garden bearing tomatos on vines, green peppers, squash

A flower bed; roses; red and pink; bees buzzing around

My kids on the terrace running around in their flip flops; kicking a ball around an old well

A kitchen; Detached from the house; windows opened to the sea; door almost nonexisting

My man is in the kitchen with me; sitting beside an old island in the middle of the tiny brick kitche. I'm standing by the counter, mixing onhredients for a Persian/Greek dish of stuffed pepper and tomatoes. He is cutting freshly picked tomatoes on an old cutting board. He throws jokes at me sometimes. Sometimes we talk history and architects sometimes ideas and opinion. Politics. Virtue. Socrates.

The smell of the sea is enhanced by the flying afternoon breezes. The kids rush in and grab their simply made plates and fruits and rush out to play some more with the couple local kids the befriended. We pick the aromatic dishes and Poe ourselves a couple glasses and step out, pass through the terrace, walk by the garden, and sit at the patio tables over the cliff looking down at the sea. The sun is setting down. The drink smells like flowers. The food melts on our tongue. The moisture in the air so soft on my skin. The company warm by my side, looking in my eyes at times, looking away at time. I know he is happy with me. I am. 

My Escape Lately: Nezami Ganjavi

I have found a nightly escape routine lately. I started browsing poems of Nezami; one of my favorite Persian poets whose master piece, Layla and Majnun, granted me my name; An Arabic love story between two young schoolmates in olden day tribes of that land.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layla_and_Majnun

I started with Khosrow and Shirin, a Persian love story and a tragic one with Farhad's suicide in his love for Shirin.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khosrow_and_Shirin

One thing that peaqued my attention was the nuances in relationships and dialogues between the lovers. The similarities and the differences between the Persian correspondences and costumes versus Arabic ones. How modesty and pudency were present in both while in the Persian version the ladies were more forthright with their words and even their bodily presence while in the Arabic version we hardly "hear" Leyli's words.

Leyli, by the way, was the original Arabic name than evolved to Layla and is also spelled as Leyla and Leila.

The beautiful words and meaning, the poetic expression, the softness of the dialogue, these all have me recharged every night; somewhat the starch contrast to my daily life as a business woman, tough and strategic and analytical and matter of the fact; this nightly reading is my haven. I think if I live to old ages this will how I will spend my days too, reading Persian poems, marveling in their beauty and meaning.

PS: the land of Persia has shrunk but the poems of Persian language will always be Persian. Even if their birthplace or tomb is not within the current borders of the modern map of Iran. This is how I see this. 

Image from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layla_and_Majnun#/media/File:Story_of_Mejnun_-_in_wilderness.jpg

To Be Tried

The wise say when you feel the burden of life, when you feel you are being tried, look within for the lesson you needed to learn. Then learn it lest it would be repeated.

I am being tried with human's true nature, with their wants and desires, with their determination to gain what they please even if they didn't earn it.

I wonder how I'm being tried in that. It's not my doing. Yet it will be my reaction to it.

Let it be. Bring it on. I'm ready for my lesson. As God be my tutor lending me a hand or two when I need it. Amen!