11/29/2008

Driving Through The Fog

I went to visit with my family again tonight. We sat around the dinner table before, during, and after dinner, chatting and laughing with my cousins who are visiting from Iran. It was such a good time. These days more than ever, when I get together with my family it feels like I'm putting down some weight from my shoulders. I don't know how to describe it better. I just feel lighter and less dragged down when I leave them.
Afterwards, I got in my little car and started driving down the hill, through a winding road, towards the freeway. A thick fog had covered the road, rendering very low visibility. I could hardly see a few yards ahead of my headlights. I drove slowly and carefully. I turned off the radio, so that I could hear my environment better. Around a bend, my headlights caught the eyes of a deer, right by the side of the road. Soon I saw that he wasn't alone, there were two others with him. I wanted to yell at them and tell them to stay off that road, to go back into the woods and stay there, where it was safe and they wouldn't be run over by cars. They looked so sweet and loving to each other, two of them keeping the younger of the three behind them. They didn't startle me like deer by the roadside often do. I don't know why. I felt love and strength in their little family's excursion into my world. Did they have a message for me? Did I have a message for them? I continued on the dark and foggy road until I reached the main Road in Lafayette, where I noticed the trees covered in Christmas lights, as they always do during Thanksgiving weekend. Something about the routine and predictability of those lights and their glittering beauty made me smile. I realized that when you put some weight off your shoulders, you can see better, you can remember better, you can feel better. I think I'm seeing again.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Nazy

Again a lovely post about beauty of the communation, and even nature. Staring at the eyes of a deer and feeling spirite and beauty of nature, needs not only open eyes but also open heart in love, life, etc.

my lively and buoyant friend, undoubtedly you are permanent soure of a great love and friendship. You did another mission really well :)
Be happy in all of your life.


The bests;
Soshiyans

Anonymous said...

Dear Nazy - I don't know you, but I love your posts. You write so beautifully and sincerely. When I read your posts, I feel as though I am re-connecting with a piece of Iran and my Iranianness that I would otherwise not have, as I am distant from my family. Thank you. And keep writing. I am glad that you are feeling better a little bit. It does sound as though you have been through a lot this year (I have to -it has been hell).But after the hard times come the good . . .That is the cycle of life. And how you will enjoy every minute of it!

Anonymous said...

سلام نازی عزیز
مرسی از کامنت خوبت :)
راستش خیلی دلتنگ نیستم, درگیرم. تز نوشتن آدم را از زندگی می اندازد. حالا دارم میدوم که بالاخره یک روزی زود از یک جایی زندگی شروع شود. آرام و بی عجله !:)
دلتنگ بچه ها بودن را هم میفهمم. از چشمهای مادرم یاد گرفتمش. در مورد پسرهایت میدانم که موفقند همیشه
شاد باشی :)

jeerjeerak said...

"When you put some weight off your shoulders, you can see better, you can remember better, you can feel better."
I wish this to last for you Nazy jan; and for rest of us to happen.

Austin Shapiro said...

Ah, thank you, Nazy, for the picture of the beautiful fog (Highway 1?)... it reminds me of home. Changes in the weather always remind me that there is change after stagnation and renewal after weariness. Fog is the best -- it seems that the scene is being changed behind the darkness, but in what way we will not know until the curtain is lifted.

I remember a New Year's Eve several years ago, when I badly wanted a change in my life. Of course, New Year's Eve is not recognized by the cosmos as a moment different from any other, and so nothing seemed to happen just at midnight. But by the time a friend and I (having had too much wine) staggered home, a thick pre-dawn fog had descended. We spoke about what might be in store for the next year, and when I got home, I wrote down a few of our wishes and thoughts so as not to forget them in my own internal haze. When I woke up on the afternoon of January 1, the paper by my bedside said: "Something, like a cat, has concealed its giving birth."

What coming fortune does not yet reveal its face to you?