Nostalgia In A Hotel Room

Autumn in Qom Province, Iran.

I am in a hotel room, exhausted from a very long day of driving to an intensive training class and "team building" with several colleagues from work. Unpacking, I realized I had forgotten to pack the book I was reading. Without a book, I will have a hard time falling asleep tonight. I searched the room and found nothing to read. I then turned on the television, hoping it would help. I laughed, as I couldn't remember the last time I had mindlessly turned on the TV! I switched the channels, feeling smug to have the remote control all to myself, absent my kids who usually hoard the device and the appliance! Switching from station to station, I found there was nothing I wanted to watch. I have simply grown out of the habit of television, it seems, and I don't mind it at all.

My room overlooks a man-made lake on which colored lights and fountains are creating beautiful sites and sounds in the dark. A thought grips me again, as it does everytime I find a moment to sit down quietly. What is happening in Tehran right now? It's early morning hours of a Tuesday there now. What are my friends doing right now? Who is driving through the streets that once used to be my neighborhood? Are the shops open now? Soon, the Haji Agha that runs the small produce market on the corner would set up the tray which holds heaps of large red beets, laboo, to be cooked and ready for sale by noon, clouds of steam rising from it, and the delicious and unparalleled smell of it filling that corner of the neighborhood on a cold November day. I am dead tired and my mind is filled with memories, sights, and smells of Tehran. I miss it again tonight.