Numbers

Two years, I would say to myself. Two years until I finish my Master’s and can go back for a visit. I thought single entry visas works that way, you have to wait for the expiration of the visa and then you are good to go back. When I realized that’s not the case, I told myself “Ok, that’s fine, I’ll wait till I get my H1B visa, that would be another year or so, and then I can go back.” My fiancé’s aunt had told me she knew someone from her company who often goes back to Iran on H1B. I scratched all my calculations, “Ok, one year after getting my job and I can go back.” Our company’s lawyer thought otherwise:

You might actually encounter more delays when applying for your H-1B visa stamp because you will have to apply for an H-1B visa at the Consulate before entering the U.S. instead of entering on an existing visa stamp. There is the chance your visa could get held up in administrative processing while the Consulate runs additional security checks. Unfortunately, travel to and from Iran in any status at this current time may result in delays and potential problems.

“All right!” I said to myself patiently, “The good news is that my company applies for my Green Card one year after my start date.” And on average, the Green Card process takes a year or so. But this time I wanted to be sure, so I asked our HR to email me the exact time frame for each stage:

Stage 1:

PERM Process- 2-3 months

Recruitment Campaign- 3 months

PERM application- 3-6 months

Stage 2 and 3 (completed together) (5-8 months):

I-140 petition- Immigration and USCIS are looking at the position

I-485 petition- Immigration and USCIS are looking at you, background, medical and criminal history, etc.

I picked a sticky note and added the numbers. 2+3+3+5 = 13 months in the best-case scenario and 3+3+6+8 = 20 months in the worst case. 20 months… but that’s the worst-case scenario. No need to worry about that now.

            A day later, my French colleague, who is one year in his Green Card process texts me: “Ughh, the green card process is gonna take longer than expected… kill meeeeee”. He says they told him that his case would take at least another year. “Immigration is so slow, steps that should take 2 months max are taking 6-8 months.” And then he adds “I know it’s even trickier for you”. I look at my phone screen, “scratch all your calculations” I say to myself. “It may take another two years, or even more. Who knows?”

 Why should I decide between going home and staying here, where I had built my second home? I don’t want to lose my job, to leave my apartment which I love, which I decorated every single corner with passion. At the same time, I don’t want to not see my family, my brother who can’t leave Iran due to his military service, my cousins, my aunts and uncles for another two years. I’m trapped.

Her hands

He hands unbutton her manteau, unscarf her hair and are washed in the kitchen's sink. They pick up a pot and boil some water, take some onions out from the pantry, chopping and wiping out tears. Her hands cook the rice and prepare the stew. They make dinner every night after she comes home from work.

My hands put the house keys in the cute little bowl on the table. They take off work clothes and put on sleepwear. They open up the fridge to see if they find something to eat, and when they don't find anything they grab two eggs to boil, a glass of milk to drink, or they might not even do that some nights. My hands only feel like cooking when it's a weekend. They will soon tuck me in bed, pick up a book or play a show on my laptop for me, until I fall asleep.

My mom's hands are cleaning up after dinner, with an extra pair of hands, maybe, helping them. Her hands are too tired to pick up a book. 

I would be a dog...

I would be a dog, a good dog. At least I'd have a sharp nose. A nose with memory. I know that for a fact, because memories come to me with their scents. Each memory is like a scented candle, you open the jar and you take a good, long sniff and everything comes back to you. I would also have sensitive ears, because I can listen to a song, and the place, the feeling, the circumstances in which I was listening to it for the first time all comes back to me in a flash.

I can see myself as a dog, who is locked in a house. The owners have went out and locked him in so he doesn't make any trouble. The house to me is home. I live in this house. I know every corner of it. I love how their shoes smell, how my bowl is filled with my favorite food, how I can stretch myself on the sofa and relax as the sun sets in. I can peek in all its hidden places and find stuff. It feels like home when I 'm here but at the same time, it still has so many new things to offer.

But if I'm realistic, I wouldn't be a happy dog. This dog that is left behind is sitting behind the door, panting. Panting for the door to be opened, for the owners to come home and play with her. I pant when I smell a memory, when a memory is brought back to me by a rhythm, through a song. I listen to my old playlists and I pant, as I want to go back to where I made all those memories. I see a picture from a street I used to walk on, and I pant. Panting at the thought of walking there again, of not knowing what has stayed the same and what has changed. I pant thinking about everything that I'm missing outside that closed door and it's been three years now that I've been panting at that door, waiting for it to be open.


 Yes, I would be a good panting dog.

Chapter 13: Campus

Listening to the song "Mah o Mahi" which I've been addicted to for a couple of days now, I look out at the campus, the campus I studied on, walked on and lived on for two years, and it feels like it has been ages. I almost forgot where the buttons were on the elevator to the third floor of Siebel, the computer science department and I had definitely forgotten about how long it takes for the door to close on the first floor. But some things are still the same, like how Davood comes and sits with me in the lunch room for a cup of tea. I used to go to him for tea all the time. I would text him from my office which is on the other end of the third floor and would let him know that I'll be walking over to his office soon, and he'd better be ready for coming to have tea with me. And we would sit right here at this table, where he was sitting a minute ago before going to a group meeting, and talk about our lives. He would tell me things that he is missing and I would always nag, as he says, about something that is not going right in my life. It seems again like it has been ages, I can't really find anything I can nag about anymore.

Although I just did write a letter to Shaghayegh and nagged about still not feeling that I belonged here in the United States. I walked from my previous apartment, which is occupied by my best friend at the moment, to Espresso Royale, my favorite cafe here on campus, ordered a cafe au lait and started writing the letter that I've been meaning to write for a long time. We had this discussion with Shaghayegh about a month ago on FaceTime, about still not feeling we belong here, not feeling this can ever be home. It worries us both. And we both know that we may never be able to call the home we had, the home we came to know, home any more.

Well I just nagged quite a bit, or quite a lot, and I can see that this hasn't changed either, and neither has campus, and neither has life. They all go on... .

Chapter 12: Grandpa

What I feared most happened, and I was on the other side of a Skype call, tears streaming down my face, seconds after I heard this: "We don't have good news, azizam!". My mom told me that she, my dad and my brother all wanted to Skype with me that night since they were all in. And here I was, in my apartment, making myself breakfast, chopping the grapes to go with the bread and the cheese, when my mom said it.

What she said was enough for me to understand what has happened. I looked up from the plate of grapes, looked at them all and asked: "It happened?" as if I needed a confirmation, as if I still had a small ray of hope. I knew better to wait for an answer.

I cried and thought that's it, that's my biggest fear ever since I moved to the US coming true. I don't have anything else to lose. All that enthusiasm for going back to Iran died in me at once. I just couldn't see a reason why I would want to go back now. Everything was different all of a sudden, all that I felt, all that I looked forward to. I cried and cried, not just because I wasn't there. But because I had lost him, an important part of my life, a key to my childhood, forever. The last piece of my life, that connected me to that happy, carefree child was gone. My last grandparent alive.

I've been thinking about him a lot since yesterday when I received that dreadful piece of news. I think about how he used to hug me, and put his hands around my face and kissed both my cheeks. I remember all those Court Piece games that we played and I won, and that one time we played Pasur and he won. "Let's play Court Piece, you are no good at this!" he told me. And I loved him for that, for always speaking his mind. 

I still can't believe it has happened. That my dad went to give him a shower the day before and my grandpa asked him: "Who was that little girl washing me when I was taking a shower?". I don't want to believe that the next time I'm in Tehran, the first thing I would want to do is to go see him, but not at his room, where we sat and played card games for hours, but at Behesht-e-Zahra, where he is resting forever in peace right next to my grandma. And right there lie the last two pieces... .

Chapter 11: Neighborhood

Today I went for a checkup to the doctor and she gave me a blood test. After giving out what seemed to be a lot of blood (maybe five of those tiny lab bottles) I felt a bit dizzy and disoriented. I remembered whenever my parents took me to the doctor, after which I would end up with an injection prescription ninety percent of the time, my dad would run up to the closest supermarket which was usually right across the street and bought me a "Sandis" and a "Titop". Remembering how my parents took care of me all the time led me to the realization that it's time for me to take care of myself, but here being the United States of America, the closest place to get something to eat was probably half an hour drive and for me who doesn't have a car, it soon turned into a "forget it" moment.

I've started to realize how much I didn't appreciate those little small tiny things that made my life so precious. Walking into a bookstore, a newspaper kiosk, a supermarket and browsing until I found that thing that I was looking for gave me immense pleasure. The shopkeepers became our friends. Even if we didn't want to buy something and were just passing by, we would turn our head towards their store, gave them a nod or a smile and made our presence known. I remember one time that my mom and I were going to her friend's place and we stopped by a china store to get her a gift for going to her place for the first time. The store didn't have a wrapping paper to wrap the present. I suggested we went to my favorite bookstore whose owner knew me very well and ask them if they would wrap the present for us if we bought the wrapping paper. As I expected, they gladly did it for us without even being bothered by it. I miss knowing people in my neighborhood, I miss walking home from the closest subway station. I tried to pick a neighborhood in Seattle that is close to the shops in downtown, but I don't want Nordstrom or Banana Republic, I really really want our Daryani supermarket and my tiny little bookstore. I'm tired of ordering all my books through Amazon, I really am.

Chapter 10: Yoga

My yoga classes have a weird effect on me. They act like a therapy session in which the therapist makes you talk about memories on the back of your mind to figure out what is it that you suffer from. Every time I do a pose in which I close my eyes, I see a flash back of a memory in front of my eyes. Today for just a second, I saw Vali-asr sqaure. I saw a very specific and narrow alley next to the square, in front of which a vendor is selling breakfast breads, with the trademark "Razavi" written on them. That takes me to another memory, to my grandmother, my mom's mother, who lived in Mashhad. We went to Mashhad pretty much every year to visit my mom's family. Our first stop was always my grandparents house. We would get there at night, having had dinner on the plane, we would talk to them for a while and then go to sleep. The real excitement for me was the next morning. My grandmother knew I loved those Razavi breads and at that time, they were only sold in Mashhad. Therefore, she would have each type of bread, sometimes two or three of the same type, at the breakfast table for me. I think my favorite breakfast ever was the one that we had at their basement, which had windows facing their backyard. The yard was still green and happy, not like the last time I went there to say goodbye to the house. All those years, my grandma never forgot to get those Razavi breads for me, well not until many years later when she got really sick and the yard became deserted.

During the last week's stretches, I remembered my English classes at ILI (Iran Language Institute). My English institute was on Shariati street, one of my favorite streets in Tehran. It was right in front of this huge bookstore which had the best collection of books and stationary and I always went there before my class and window shopped. The institute itself was a school, which served as a language institute in the evening. I took English, German and French classes there, during a course of 10 years, so I know every corner of that place really well. During my yoga class, I remembered the entry, which had doors with white bars. Upon entering you would see the registration office on your right and the teachers lounge on the left. I knew many teachers who were still there who were my instructor me when I was a teenager and many who had left already, mostly gone to west.

I got to know one of my best friends in those evening classes when I was in high school. We shared a common passion for books, at the time "Harry Potter" and we soon realized that we can talk, about every thing. Before we knew it, we started writing letters to each other. We wouldn't exchange those during the classes though, because what is the fun in that? We would mail them and patiently wait for them to arrive (sometimes after a month). Our letters were at times 30 pages long, hers sometimes longer than that. I struggled to keep up with Nazgol, cause her letters were full of details and events. It felt like I was living every moment that she had experienced with her. We stopped being each other's pen-pals after a letter that I sent her for Norouz (our new year) got lost. I had even made a bookmark for her and put it in the envelope alongside with the letter. I found the letter months later in my dad's car, he had simply forgotten to mail it.

Our Yogi has told us a couple of times that some of our moves can make us emotional. What he hasn't yet said is whether it's normal to cry during the practices? When the song being played is so soft and so identical to a song in one of your favorite Iranian movies of all time, is it normal to experience teary eyes? Should I be doing yoga after all?

Chapter 9: School Shuttle

We had to get up very early to start our road trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Salim and I were already up and doing the final packing when our friend who was joining us for the trip finally got up as a result of us constantly calling him. The first thing he said was “You’ll miss the school shuttle!” and we all started laughing. 

Missing the school shuttle was what motivated us to get up in the morning and get ready and out the door. There weren’t any school buses in Iran. You either walked to school or took the public transportation or your parents paid for a service called “School Shuttles”. Shuttles were usually full size cars and four students who lived in the same neighborhood shared the same shuttle. The shuttle drivers would tell each person when to be ready to be picked up. Being late for your pick up time could result in missing your shuttle. Iranian parents would usually take the kids to school themselves in that case, and that was why the “You’ll miss the school shuttle” was repeated several times from the time they woke you up and the time you were tying your shoelaces. When you made it to the shuttle though, the real torture began. The drivers usually had their radio on and at that time of the day, all the channels had a song being played about how nice waking up early in the morning is, or how nice the weather in the morning is, or something nice about mornings. Sitting there listening to those songs when you knew you could be in your bed and it sure felt much nicer was ironic. Then you remembered that you had a quiz on a chapter of your literature class and you hadn’t even opened it, so you would pull out the book from your bag pack and the rest of the ride to school was you paying attention to the names of the poets and the years they were born than to the songs on the radio.

Coming home from school was much more enjoyable. You started talking to your shuttle-mates about what had happened that day in school. I think our shuttle driver, for one, knew all the names of our teachers and their individual characteristics because that was what we talked about all the time. When we were out of topic, we would flirt with boys who were also out of school at the same time, wave at them and sometimes, our seniors would exchange numbers or winks. I clearly remember this one snowy day that we were going back home and we happened to reach a point where traffic was slow and there was a boys school right on the side of the road. The school hours were over and the boys were coming out and we couldn’t have asked for a better target for our snow balls made with the snow on the roof of the shuttle.

We gradually made a strong bond with our shuttle drivers. They knew each of us and even our parents. My dad was trying to get a taxi when he accidentally ran into a cab driver who used to be a shuttle driver that took me to school when I was in middle school years later when I was in collage. He recognized my dad and gave him a free ride. That was the last time I heard of any of the shuttle drivers that took us to school, but I wonder if I ever run into them accidentally, would they remember me and whether I was punctual or not? God knows I always tried to be punctual!

Chapter 8: Cousins

Cousins are a weird part of our lives, they are like our siblings, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. I had a six year age difference with my youngest girl cousin on my dad side and the rest were even older than me. Naturally they were always doing things together and I was always left out, but that didn’t keep me from trying hard to be in their group and be a part of their conversations. I remember one night that we were all gathered in my aunt’s place for dinner. We had just had our dinner that I noticed all the girls have disappeared. Being afraid that they might be doing something without me and that I might get left out, I started looking for them and soon found them in my cousin’s room, all listening to her telling the story of this guy she had just met. My cousin was sitting on the bed, with my other cousins each sitting in one corner of them room carefully listening to her describing this guy and how he looked like. I quietly made my way into the room and sat down in a corner, trying not to be seen and noticed. I started listening to how this guy had sun glasses on and was riding a motorcycle. How he followed my cousin and disappeared into the night. I can tell now that the story was much exaggerated, but at the age of seven, I believed every word. That night on the way back home, sitting on the back seat of our car with my brother deep asleep next to me, I looked back the whole time, thinking that the handsome guy in my cousin’s story might appear out of the blue with his sun glasses following us till we get home.

As I grew up, my cousins started to see that I act older than my age and they started to trust me with their stories. It got to a point where they told me that I am the first one they are telling this to and I felt so proud. I felt like I earned this, after all that time sitting in a corner and feeling invisible, now I was in the center. But soon they started leaving Iran one by one. The first one left Iran for Canada, the second one came here to the US, the third went to England and I was alone. I went through my high school and college years with no girl cousins to talk to and tell my boy stories to. They were out in the West, going in relationships, getting married and making their own story. I thought I was completely forgotten and thrown out of their lives, after all that years of waiting to get in. But that all changed when I got accepted to the University of Illinois. As they heard the news they were all super excited. One of them drove all the way from the other side of the country to pick me up from O’hare airport in Chicago and take me to Champaign. One of them invited me to stay with her for a month for my Christmas break and I started to be a part of their lives again. I was the first to know that my cousin Somayeh is pregnant and kept the news with me till she was ready to tell everyone. I got to spend time with my cousins every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring break and got to know more about their spouses, their kids and their life. 

Leaving Iran definitely made me miss out on a lot of family events, but it also brought me closer to my cousins, and after all your cousins are like your siblings, it’s just a bit more complicated!