Still, I Rise

Part I: Goodbye Iran

One beautiful spring day in May in the early 1980s, at Tehran Mehrabad International Airport. Yet, the air inside was eerie and cold. With me that day were my parents, younger siblings, uncle, and the spirit of my executed older brother, Aref. About three years before that day, when he was only eighteen, he was killed by the dictator regime of the so-called Islamic Republic of Iran. 

I was terrified to leave my country. A thousand thoughts passed through me as I followed my father's steps toward Air France's departure gate. I was sent to Paris to escape from my home country and stay alive. I had no idea when I would return to see my childhood home, family, and friends.

The airport security let my father—and, narrowly, my uncle—pass the passport check because I was still a minor. The security guard looked at my passport and asked if I was traveling alone to Paris. My father replied dryly, "Yes." The guard then informed us that my name appeared in their system with a warrant for arrest and that I was forbidden to leave the country. I felt weak in my knees, and my heart started pounding hard from apprehension.

My father started protesting, but my uncle intervened amicably, imploring the guard that there must be a mistake and to let me go before I missed the flight. My uncle was contending that it was perhaps a name mixed up— and as if he was expecting the guard's response, he allowed a stack of cash toward him under a piece of paper. I don't remember many details—only small bits and pieces, like flashbacks. Finally, after many excruciating long minutes that felt forever, the guard returned and stamped my passport as an exit visa to leave.

I saw my mother on the other side of the glass wall. Her face was covered with tears, in her eyes a sea of unease, and yet with a smile of gratitude. My sister, who was only a year old, was crawling around in her little white hand-knitted dress, oblivious to the entire happening. I envied her carelessness. I waved back at my younger brother, quietly witnessing it all, but my voice shot into my dried throat. My heart sank.

There is a scene at the end of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis graphic novel in which she experiences the exact moment of leaving Iran.

"I couldn't bear looking at them there behind the glass. Nothing is worse than saying goodbye. It's a little like dying." —Marjane Satrapi in Persepolis.

I relived the very exact moment. I looked back one last time before onboarding the airport bus to the plane. My father held my mother to help her walk away from the airport security point. It was a sad and difficult moment that I will never forget. 

With the help of the flight attendant, I found my seat. The plane was packed with Arab men. Aside from their apparent outfits, I knew because as soon as the plane took off, they chanted in Arabic, "Allah o Akbar," meaning God is Great. It took me back to the daily obligatory prayers in school. I wondered how badly the pilot was that made them pray for take off. It made me nervous to sit among them, reminding me why I was running away. I felt nauseous, perhaps from nervousness or my first time flying. Sadness took over me, not knowing when I would see my family again. I cried.

I could also hear some Persian-speaking individuals in different rows of the aircraft. I remember one woman walking toward me to comfort me, asking, "Why are you crying? You're going to Paris, honey, the Bride of all the cities in the world!" Paris was known to Iranians that way, referring to its beauty. I couldn't care less. All I wanted was to be back in my mother's arms.

Like everything else in my life, the short journey took an unexpected turn. Before landing in Paris, our plane expected a brief stop in Cypress. I am trying to remember why, perhaps due to a technical problem, we had to spend the night there, which felt more like a nightmare!

Unfortunately, cell phones were not a thing in the eighties, so I could not contact my parents or cousins in Paris. So, confused and uncertain, I followed the same Persian group, like a lost puppy, from the airport to the taxi and the hotel that the airline provided. That night, I barely got any sleep. Now I think about it, I should've accepted their invitation to go sightseeing. But I stayed in my room, scared. I remember my phone rang disturbingly a few times during the night, but I did not pick it up or answer the door knocking. I don't know if I was frightened or homesick. I can still picture the room's darkness and cold temperature and hear the city's noise. It was a lot to rehash and cope with for a teenage girl who's never been separated from her family. 

To clarify my seemingly "overreacting emotions," I was already heartbroken and impacted by a few years of family mourning over my brother's loss and constant horrifying news. Our grieving was followed by the regime's abusive suppression of my family. During the past three years, my parents and I were taken into custody for interrogations to create fear and distress. Moreover, it was the regime's tactic to torture the family of the "anti-Islamic-revolutionary" members emotionally and psychologically. They forced my parents to retire early by cutting their salaries; I was banned from attending any university; Hijab— women's headcover and daily school praying were mandatory. They confiscated some of my parents' properties. They even broke my brother's stone tomb because my parents had engraved a beautiful poem. We were living in constant fear. And now I was forced to leave my family and home country indefinitely with a small suitcase. None of which were my choice.

"Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people–they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress." —Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

When my plane landed in Paris, it was daytime and sunny. My arrival in Paris was not exactly the romantic scene I imagined in the pictures and movies. The bus ride from the plane to the gates after that long flight caused me motion sickness. It is strange how I remember these random memories. I am sure the lack of sleep from the night before added to the distress, too. I felt so sick that I threw up at the airport. I arrived pale and weak. Later, I overheard the family friends, who picked me up, telling my parents over a phone conversation that I looked like a wasted zombie from hell when they found me at the gate. 

Everything was surreal. That night, the view of magical Paris with its shimmering lights will forever be etched in my mind. The Eiffel Tower reminded me of Tehran's Azadi Tower (meaning freedom, formerly the Shahyad Tower). I remember thinking, "Why don't we light up our tower like this?" I couldn't believe I was in Paris, and I wished I could share this with my schoolmates and cousins, whom I had left behind and who could not escape, the loved ones I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to. I felt so lonely. I felt like Cinderella passed the midnight hour.

In the days that followed, I found myself in an unknown city with an unrevealed future among the strange foreign-speaking people, who, for example, shrugged their shoulders with a peculiar sound they made with their lips instead of saying: "No" or "I don't know." however, ironically, every uncomfortable moment I tolerated and handled made me want to be better at things, stand above it all, and be resilient.

Those days were the start of the strength and independence I found in exile for many years and the challenges I overcame. To my not knowing, this would become my home for the next three years. I became fluent in French, made new friends, and learned to smoke cigarettes while indulging in many cups of café au lait in charming Paris cafes. Slowly, the fears were replaced by images of Audrey Hepburn in the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

I navigated through the Metro and walked all over the picturesque city. Those walks and explorations became my first steps toward freedom and learning to be vital and rely on myself.

The final destination, however, was to go to the US. Yet, living in Paris started a new chapter of my life that would change the entire course of my life. 

Part II: Woman, Life, Freedom

The 2022 women-led uprising and protests in Iran, a historical movement shaping into a revolution, profoundly resonate with me. The source of the resonance is deeply rooted in my Persian blood and the experiences I had for the past decades of my life, migrating out of my home country. These days, the words echoing in my mind are perseverance, endurance, resilience, power, unstoppable, and hope for a better life.

Are these traits printed onto our DNA, passed down through the generations, gained by life circumstances, or both? Or sometimes, bravery is born just because enough is enough when one is pushed to the boundaries and stands on the edge?

For thousands of years, powerful Persian women were depicted in our history books and one of Ferdowsi's best historical literature and masterpieces, the Shāhnāmeh. We read that Persian women were heroes for leading, influencing, and fighting in battles of the most excellent Persian Empire. The same Empire whose king, Cyrus the Great, wrote the first declaration of human rights and set the Babylonian enslaved people free for the first time in history.

Today, we see women rising all over the cities of Iran and abroad, demonstrating their social disobedience and protests, fighting for their fundamental rights and freedom after more than forty years of suppression.

I am no soldier and have never fought in a battle. I may not have held a sword in my hands while riding a horse across a battlefield, but I certainly had my share of emotional and psychological struggles that shaped my strength. The closest I came to a gun was at a post-revolution mandatory training in middle school when I was 12 years old. It was an idiotic act by the occupier and oppressor of the Islamic Regime of Iran, who stole and derailed our 1979 revolution to overthrow the monarchy— the same Shah of Iran that brought nothing but improvements, pride, and honor to our country. That day, as part of the training, I held a Russian Kalashnikov in my small hands alongside the other girls in my school. We learned how to be a militia, disassemble, reassemble, and even shoot at a target in the schoolyard. 

Even though I was a child of the revolution period and witnessed— and was a victim of, the regime's brutality at a very young age, I never discovered that trait of strength in me until I left Iran. Instead, I found them in the hardships and obstacles I had to overcome and problems I had to resolve independently. 

By the Western definition, I was a nerd, doing exceptionally well in school. I never had a boyfriend in high school, but beautiful friendships and family surrounded me. I was the girl next door and still a teenager when my parents sent me to France to survive. 

Paris was supposed to be a transitional stay until I obtained my visa to the US. However, I ended up living there unexpectedly for three years due to political and social circumstances that were out of my control. As if I didn't have enough of life events early on, my family decided that for my "safety" and protection, I was to marry a guy I had never met! He was living in the United States and was an Iranian-born American citizen who had left Iran before the revolution. Our families knew each other back home, making him a suitable match. He was ten years older than me and had just finished university in the US. I met him for the first time when he arrived in Paris a week before the "staged wedding." Until that day, I only saw pictures of him, but we talked on the phone frequently. He looked nothing like his pictures—older looking than I imagined.

So I got married, in a small chaotic ceremony, in the romantic city of Paris, except there was nothing romantic about it. Not a single member of my family attended. I remember my bizarre emotions on the wedding day. I was numb and confused and didn't know much about him. I hated my makeup and haircut and didn't even know most guests. The party was in a small apartment on the 30th floor at my sister-in-law's place, jammed with strange people. Like any young girl, I imagined my wedding day to be a dreamy, beautiful, and magical setting. That night, however, I was far from my fantasy and fairytale.

Arranged "remote" marriages were a norm those days because leaving the country was a priority to most families. In addition, people protesting against the regime were being arrested, tortured, and killed without legal prosecution. My options were limited. Also, If my liberal, educated, and young parents agreed to my arranged marriage, it meant to me that it was necessary. For me, marriage was only another step in life to get to the next. I wanted to go to the US to study and pursue my education. I thought maybe I would grow to like him. However, after moving to the US, I remained married longer than I wished for until I eventually found my way to independence. 

Looking back, my three years in Paris had many ups and downs but mesmerizing in many ways that shaped my personality. For one, I had to deal with a depressed and selfish "inmate," who was my "husband's" sister. I lived with her and her husband (and occasionally her mother). The sister-in-law often clashed with me for no good reason and small matters, putting me down frequently. I was young and susceptible to her harsh words. I never figured out her anger and unnecessary bitterness. But I put up with her insanity and belittling like a champ because I had a bigger goal.

Some nights, my quiet sobs broke the silence of my room. The ache of missing my family and the impossibility of returning to Iran weighed heavily on me. During my stay in France, my mom visited only once, a fleeting moment of comfort in an ocean of loneliness. Gradually, I taught myself to emotionally detach, building walls around my heart to hurt less.

So, I kept living my French life, merging into a culture that, even to this day, has become part of my preferred lifestyle. I do remember beautiful, reflective moments in Paris. I fell in love with French crepes, strolled in the lovely Jardin du Luxembourg, and made wonderful international friends. I explored the dreamy south coasts of France, the Cote d'Azur, Nice, and Montpelier. Young and vibrant, I absorbed the culture like a sponge. 

One of my favorite pastimes was walking along Saint Michelle (aka Lovers Street) and sitting in front of the much beloved Notre Dame Cathedral to write my diary and draw walkers and scenes. Sometimes, I had to move in and out of the places to live with my cousins and newly found friends. My cousins, who lived far away from Paris, were too busy and preoccupied to take care of me, and since I was waiting to hear of my visa for the US any day, I had to make frequent trips to the embassy weekly, so I had to stay near Paris.

I occasionally worked as a babysitter or helper in a store. Then, one summer, I saved enough money to register at the famous Sorbonne University to complete a French language certificate. It made me proud of myself. Meanwhile, my legal husband would visit me only a few times over the next two years, and I was thoroughly content with that arrangement. 

I arrived in the US in November of 1988. I endured the good and bad situations for the first nine years in the US by staying focused. I worked at various jobs, including tutoring in college. I studied hard while playing a good little wife facing a complex identity crisis. I was living a dual life. One was energetic, focused, and a typical student with like-minded friends my age— Some didn't even know I was married, and I didn't feel that way either. The other was a responsible, unhappy, traditional wife with older folks. Picture a mischievous, lively, bohemian 25-year-old girl in ripped jeans with American flag prints cooking traditional meals for guests old enough to be her parents.

At times, I struggled to keep up with my studies. I was miserable having two very different lives; a volcano was ready to erupt inside me, but I stayed focused and strong. In 1993, I graduated from the UC Berkeley School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and secured a decent job at a high-tech company in California. Engineering was the fastest way to my freedom. I was good at technical subjects, which was a sure path to financial independence.

At heart, I had always wanted to be an artist. Unfortunately, my circumstances didn't allow me to consider that art would help me achieve my goals. With determination and self-realized power, I finally divorced in my mid-20s without a lawyer and with no legal complications, only emotional ones. We were operating at different frequencies in separate galaxies. So, I walked away with a backpack on my shoulder, no money, an uncertain future, and a solid university degree. With the strength of thousands of swords, I rode the horse of hope on the battlefield of my life.

By then, I hadn't experienced "normal" teenage years or a typical college student life. Although it took me over a decade to claim my independence and overcome my fear of being alone, I learned at a very young age to watch after myself, strategize, and plan for my future financially and career-wise. As a result, I found a strength and intention for life that I had never imagined having.

Many years later, I eventually pursued art and got my Graphic Design degree, too. But my true teacher and education remained my turmoils in life. When faced with certain survival situations, the sub-conscience mind takes control and drives much of the conscious mind. And that was how I operated.

As the years went by, my fear of trying new paths diminished. Some of my friends would tell me that they admire my willingness to change and try new things, but to me, it was all part of me and my everyday life. Even though some of my decisions were letdowns, and I even ended up in tears, the failures became my strength. 

Of course, I have some regrets. Not that I had the ability to do things differently under the circumstances. Regret comes with the knowledge and experiences we gain in the present moment, which creates the desire to change past scenarios. Later in life, I eventually found my true voice, but it came with prices to pay and some regrets. I wish I had stood up to a few people more firmly and confidently. Knowing myself better now, I realize I didn't need to rely on anybody and would have done fine alone. For a long time, I had a recurring dream of walking up to certain people and slapping them hard.

I guess regret is not the right word since I can't turn back time, but if I could, I would never have left France and lived my life there as I intended: successful and determined.

Today, I enjoy traveling alone and seldom think about planning in detail because I know I will manage somehow —as if I want to test my limit. 

"Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown" —Anthony Bourdain.

Despite the tumultuous waves of events that carried me through those years, a few things remained constant: my determination and goal-driven actions, my friendly and social personality, my love for exploring and traveling, and my relentless desire to be better and more successful. I embrace new experiences and learn from them rather than being haunted by "What if?" Life taught me to navigate tribulations independently, often creating new challenges to overcome them. Rather than gaining new strength, I uncovered a profound, ever-present resilience within myself and developed fearlessness. Today, I can stand firmer in the face of injustice and metaphorically slap it back.

"And one day she discovered that she was fierce and strong, and full of fire, and that not even she could hold herself back because her passion burned brighter than her fears." ― Mark Anthony, The Beautiful Truth.

We need to touch the bottom of the sea of life to dig the rare gem hidden within a seashell buried under the sand. The tears of an oyster are what create an unbreakable pearl. I believe enduring over forty years of unfairness, limitations, and forceful control by brutal suppressions of the regime of Iran helped the new generation today to find their voice and power.

My ever-growing personality and empowering journey didn't end with my independence after migrating to the US. Instead, it only became a new beginning in the following chapters of my life, where I discovered more of my capacity and resilience, with no limit to coping with the impediments of what life would bring me. I witnessed what didn't kill me, making me more vital and resolute. 

"The show must go on" — Freddie Mercury.