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Pulling It Together

Life has been a little out of control of late, and it finally looks like I might be pulling it together again. After a whole month in the shop, my poor little scrunched up car, my Shabdiz*, was fixed and came home to me this week. Phewww! Who would have thought a “thing” could feel so much like a part of our family? Though I had a rental replacement, I missed my little car. My car is a place I spend so much time by myself, thinking, listening to music, and feeling. I’m glad it’s home. And my younger son, the world traveler, is coming home on Sunday night. I am certainly ready to have him home, as it has been hard not having his clunky, quirky, messy, and affable presence around. His room is unbelievably tidy now, and each time I go past it I am reminded that he is not home to mess it up or to yell at me for having touched things in his room! In his absence, my older son and I talk less, so we have fewer conflicts and problems, hating the peace and quiet that has come over us as a result of missing the world traveler! Order and peace—who would have thought they would be so unwelcome in my household?! I can’t wait for Sunday night. As has come to be my little tradition, I leave you with the image of a dancer this weekend. This is Shahrokh Moshkin Ghalam. He is a highly acclaimed and talented Iranian dancer and actor, who lives in Paris. The picture is of his performance entitled "Sufi Dance" in Paris. I saw Mr. Moshkin Ghalam in a few television interviews and I saw clips of his play, Mirzadeh Eshghi’s Kafan-e-Siah, last summer. He is artistic, articulate, and intellectually provocative in things he does and says. Here are some interesting write-ups on this artist, this one an honest and complete review of his works in the US, by Mina, finding whose blog has been a treat for me. You can also look at this article on him in Payvand. Mr. Moshkin Ghalam’s website also has interesting pictures and short descriptions of his plays, though it is in French. (This reminds me to sometime tell you the story of what I learned and didn’t learn in four years of French classes in Tehran!) I hope you all have a good weekend, full of rest, joy, and hope. This weekend, only hang out with those you love and go to places you want to go, eat and drink as you please, and listen and watch and read that which makes you happy. If anyone makes you do otherwise, report them to me immediately! Please take yourself seriously and have some serious good fun this weekend. Be good and have a good one. *You know which horse Shabdiz was, right? He was one of a pair (the other one called Golgoon) belonging to Queen of Armanistan, Mahin Banoo, whose niece, Shirin, was destined to be the love of the Iranian King, Khosrow Parviz. Some day I will write about this, the sweetest and most magnificent Iranian love story, as told by a genius of Iranian poetry, Nezami Ganjavi