childhood memories

I remember the day we left Iran, the airport was packed with people, some were shouting, a lot of them crying a few people fainting, it was mayhem. The authorities were turning people away on that day, telling them to come back the following morning. Luckily my parents refused to go home and we literally ran on the tarmac to board our plane. The following day we received news that the Iranian airport had been bombed, if that is not fate then I don't know what is. 

We were living in Stockholm in a dorm room illegally with my mom's cousin . This was a difficult time for our family yet we managed to have some wonderful memories. My brother and I were small and as far as we were concerned we were on permanent vacation. Our daily routine was to just hang out with the parents, go to the shopping malls, ice skate and just generally do what typical 8 and 6 year olds do. There was one professor who was very kind to us, she knew we were there illegally but didn't report it to anyone due to her sympathy regarding our situation. In fact she would take us to the community pool for recreation. 

I will never forget those days, you see in Sweden before entering a community pool one must strip naked and shower. You can imagine my poor mothers horror when she realized her situation. We had never been exposed to nudity except our own. My painfully shy brother was so upset that he refused to change in front of everyone, so it was off to the bathroom for his quick change. I on the other hand just shrugged and went with the flow. That evening we ran home and told my dad all about it, he was hysterical with laughter cause we manag

ed to give him some serious details about what we saw. Another incident that still cracks me up to this day was my mothers second mistake. She had noticed that "Little Red Riding Hood" was on TV so she figured finally something for the kids to watch. Well it turns out that it was a performance art piece loosely based  on the story all performed in the nude!! so much for TV. You gotta love the Europeans, they are so open about nudity and sexuality, us Iranians? not so much.

I don't know how my parents did what they did, I don't think I could have dealt with all the pressures they faced at the time like money and just the overall anxiety of leaving everything and starting new. So here we were, a family of 4 in a foreign country, no knowledge of the language, barley any money, we just had our hopes of coming to America to keep us going

. 

1 year later and many more funny incidents, way too many to write about, we were on our way to the U.S. 

Fast forward 28 years later (seriously you didn't think I was going to write my life story here now did you?) My family was visiting recently and we were watching an Iranian movie named "The Color of Paradise". It was filmed in Tehran and the Northern region of Iran called Shomal a beautiful countryside with green lush fields and vibrant flowers. 

The movie brought back some intense childhood memories. My family would take trips to Shomal, I had forgotten how gorgeous Iran is. It's hard to remember the beautiful things when my last memory was of the soldiers on the streets, the curfews, the barrel of a tank facing our window, bullets flying by at night and all because of what? The peoples revolution, where the hell did that leave us? The ridiculous revolution set the Iranian people back a few centuries.

I do wish to go back to visit some of the wonderful places I've managed to recall but I'm afraid it's not going to be the same. I would rather not ruin the good memories of vacationing in the country, swimming in the Caspian sea and being care free.