Edited on August 21st 2007
I am far: far from the heath of Italy, far from my family, far from my wishes. Though I am in Tehran as close as I can ever be to the heath, to my family and to my wishes.
These days Mansour Osanlou’s latest arrest is the talk of intellectual gatherings. He comes to my mind as courageous and kind as I last saw him. No matter how much I want to go to his family, I am short in time: have a very tense editing schedule to finish a short documentary. It seems that the events of my life are ironically independent of me. Perhaps it has been always like this. I feel like a coward: my film is about workers and yet because of it I cannot do anything to the most important union activist of our time. I remember him talking endlessly about Human Rights Charter and how important it is for people to know about it. Endless to the extent that at the end of the night while we had walked through that narrow alleyway under Tehran’s sky, with his wife and kids, I had called him Uncle Charter.
Me & the Stop Sign, Badlands, Summer 2007Memoirs, Part III, Mid July 2007
Edited on August 25th 2007
Back in Florence, I came to pick up my visa. It is as if I have always lived here. We are with our lovely friends, Pat and Jennifer. I will stay a little longer than the others mostly because I could not find a better deal for the plane ticket. Now I am alone. Today I walked straight up to the hill that looks over Firenze. I have no appetite for eating Italian food anymore.
Back in Florence, I came to pick up my visa. It is as if I have always lived here. We are with our lovely friends, Pat and Jennifer. I will stay a little longer than the others mostly because I could not find a better deal for the plane ticket. Now I am alone. Today I walked straight up to the hill that looks over Firenze. I have no appetite for eating Italian food anymore.
View of the Duomo from the hill,Florence, Summer 2007
4 comments:
Thoughtful and sensitive, as usual. I am speechless, but haunted just the same, about Osanlou. You are a woman of many dimensions dear Tameshk. I do miss you, and if I weren't so touched at this very second, I would demand to know where you are and why you have made yourself so scarce! Alas, I am touched and speechless and I walk away thinking. Thank you my dear.
Tameshk jaan,
Are you on F1 visa? If yes, would you please give me some information about your experience with getting visa back to the US? how long did you wait for clearance?...Now I am in the US but plan to have a visit to Iran in the xmas time. So any information would be great.
Thanks,
Maryam
Maryam jan
I do not have F-1 right now. I know people who came with F-1 and usually it gets about 5 weeks. I think the worst part is its ambiguity: you never know. It may arrive in 2 weeks or not in 2 months or... So I don't think Xmass gives you enough time to go home. You may miss your spring semester.
Tameshk jaan mamnoon az javabet,
Maryam
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