Tag Archives: resting

I remember I was fifteen when I heard about Charles Bukowski for the first time. It was a group of older boys who told me to check out this writer who was super obscene and controversial. Apparently those who were familiar with his work called him “Hank”, and reading it was supposed to be life-changing. […]

He is eight now, he wears glasses, and he is a rather bouncy person. I mean he likes to bounce around. In his room. In the hallway. In his car seat. Recently his mom gave him a little microphone with a built-in speaker that can amplify and add distortion effects to one’s voice. She says […]

This circus is much louder than the one I saw in Georgia. There are about two or three hundred people in here, most of whom are kids with their parents. Nobody seems bothered by the sheer volume of the show. They applaud rhythmically to anything resembling music. Then the tune changes and everyone stands up […]

The way to the lagoon leads past two old men with scruffy beards and soft smiles. They are leaning out of the gate of their house near the water, and if you know someone who knows them well then they might just hand you a bottle of something that looks like water. There is more […]

In Persia, there are at least two ways to have food. You could be sitting on a chair at a table, or you could be on the floor with your legs crossed under you. To me it often seems as if the way a household chooses to eat could signify something. There aren’t that many […]

The back alleys are quiet, the main roads are loud. I try to stay in the back alleys. Cats are patrolling them, suspiciously looking here and there. One of them stops to stare at me for a second, but as I kneel down and offer to pet it, it gives me a contemptuous look and […]

Rice paddies in the darkness. A tall wall with a gate. A yard with two houses. This place used to be a dog. It was a German Shepherd that once lived here, trapped in an enclosure. A family from the city came out every few days to look after it and feed it. It is […]

Her apartment is a space without time. The books and the plants, the table and the chairs, the bed, the paintings, the sculptures – everything seems to be just right. It’s as if change has never been a possibility, as if there never was a day when she first moved here, presumably from somewhere else. […]

Returning to Tehran feels like coming back to “the city”. It’s not as if Shiraz was small, that’s not it at all. Tehran is just so much bigger. It is also more crowded, more chaotic, and more earthsplittingly loud than most other places I’ve ever been to. Maybe this is the reason why it often […]

Everything is always the same. I step out of the warm stuffiness of the bus and into the fresh air of the day. It is nine in the morning, and I had some trouble getting into my shoes because my feet were swollen from sitting so long. This is the first time I’ve gotten up […]

Old Shiraz was a nice, quiet place that reminded me of Bukhara or Gorgan or the old parts of Tehran. There was a sense of calmness to it: Some of the old walls had graffiti on them: There were things that looked forgotten: There were religious men: And there were religious shops: Shiraz also had […]

A valley enclosed by mountains, some barren and brown, others snow-capped and aloof. In the center a rectangular stone pyramid with a house-like structure on top that looks like a petrified bouncy castle. There is a little doorway into it, and behind that doorway there used to be golden treasures and a sarcophagus containing the […]

Rain is scarce in Shiraz. And yet the oranges and tangerines were disappointing this year because of too much rain. Today, too, everything is wet. Thick drops of water roll off of the oranges and mandarines and fall into the wetness below. There is an incessant drumming sound on the flat roofs, and the gullys […]

The sun should have come up at 6:30, and it probably did. But – much to everyone’s regret – it had apparently chosen to remain hidden behind a layer of clouds. Maybe it wasn’t aware that it had an audience. It took until 8:28 for the sun to finally come out, and when it did, […]

Another little boy with poems. Only this time he’s not alone. Next to him there’s a man with a little blue bird, and he, too, is selling poems. So they are colleagues of sorts. The whole thing works like this: if you buy a poem from the little boy, he will randomly pick one for […]

The bus station is a busy place. But the bus is there, the VIP bus to Shiraz. There’s a sign that says SHIRAZ – ARGENTINIA in the front window. In English. Under the window it says GOD PLEASE HELP ME. Colorful lights are all around. On the inside of the bus there are two pennants, […]

The city is outside behind the walls. On this side of them, on the inside of the walls, there is the apartment and there is tea and talk of things. Mostly of problems. Someone got out of a relationship. Someone has administrative troubles. Someone wants to leave the country. Discussions go up and down in […]