November 2000

Celebrating.
Every dream- unexplored, unturned- is a stone in the heart. What secret am I missing that might make life sweeter?
Last night was possibly the zenith of my social retreat, dimming the lights, drinking gin and tonics, listening to Swing Out Sister, writing, letting the night open me up like a cactus flower whose petals ripple like blood with vibrant colors... in the winter of love.
Even in distance there is deep intimacy, space in which I lie nascent but no longer dreaming, hopefully, of him- he, whose people I wept for because I loved him, loved everything, hating myself for loving so much so many things, so easily... the ghosts of summer.
I'm completely disconnected from others, electronically and otherwise. The psychic connection remains undisputed; its channels ebbing, reverberating, echoing musically. Friends must know I ponder them, need them, love them- so much so that I protect them from myself.
The Iranian songstress Googoosh has risen from the dead. While so many of us fled Iran, she stayed behind because I suppose the love for her country was so immense. In the sixties and seventies Googoosh was already an icon, a trendsetter, constantly changing her look, singing in Farsi, Turkish, French, Spanish, English, thus bridging Iran to the West. Every Iranian admires her, though for years no one knew what became of her. There were rumors that she was forced to marry a mullah. Turns out she's lived a normal, quiet life in a small apartment in Tehran all these years, rarely venturing out in public, let alone singing. We are in disbelief that she has been permitted out of the country and is touring once again!
They say her voice is as pristine as ever, though she hasn't sung in twenty years; that her stage presence is deeply moving, almost a religious experience; that the emotional experience isn't limited to the audience alone, but that Googoosh herself weeps openly as she sings.
By the time mom and I arrived in San Jose and parked at the stadium we both had to pee, but as usual we were early and doors hadn't yet opened. From the parking lot we could see a small corner bar. I looked at mom who doesn't drink, 'Should we try it? Maybe have a drink while we're at it?'
To my surprise she said enthusiastically, "Sure. Why not?"
It was a dark, dingy, little place. Two men were seated at the bar, being served by a large Latino bartender. Mexican music played on the jukebox. Lockers lined one wall to the right. There was a small empty dance floor in the middle of the room. A rainbow flag. Mom and I were in a gay bar. Together!
I took a seat at the bar while mom went to the restroom. I chuckled and explained to the heavyset bartender what had just happened and he laughed. Mom came back and ordered a coffee. I ordered a gin and tonic.
Richard turned out to be a gracious bartender, introducing the two men at the bar, who stood up and shook our hands. We chatted for some time. Richard even served me a drink on the house.
"Why did he do that?" mom asked suspiciously after Richard walked away.
'I don't know. He's being nice.'
"But at the owner's expense?" she muttered disapprovingly, then added, "What a nice man."
Driving to Modesto in the dark I turned to mom, 'Can you believe we just saw Googoosh in concert?'
The chiaroscuro of Googoosh's voice- now booming, now gentle, now strong, now sweet and nostalgic- reverberated in my head for days.
Last night I dreamt that I woke from a nightmare and crawled into my father's arms, and we slept naked against each other. The nightmare continued around us, darkness enveloping the bed, but we slept in peace.
White sheets. Red wine. The moon peaks into my room. I have impregnated the moon with my song of solitude and celebration. She is rounded, full, shamelessly voluptuous. I have been daydreaming at night.
Jackie and I went to Japan Center in the city for sushi. It was a perfect night. We agreed that good food makes us instantly happy and laughed about this, as did the man sitting next to us at the bar. The sushi boats glided past, a convoy of raw colors and textures, which we took into our mouths, tasting life, beer, laughter. Even the Japanese host who brought us a pot of jasmine tea acknowledged our mirth, himself smiling widely. The lights, Japanese pop music- which made me tap my foot- fish, water flickering with reflections, Jackie's thick hair pulled back, her wide eyes swallowing the scene...
Afterwards we went to Martuni's, the piano bar, where we enjoyed sugary martinis and watched people, chatted frivolously. We were like two teenagers, not aunt and nephew. In the car, on asphalt waves home, the city flickering and fading in the background of her smile, Jackie said, "You know, the whole time we were out I didn't think about Novato, mom, or the business."
When mom and I had been in the empty parking lot of the arena in San Jose she asked me to look up a phone number in her address book. Flipping casually through the small pages I suddenly happened on Tariq's name, which caught me off-guard, as I had not anticipated it. Next to his name, in my mother's handwriting, was my name. Tariq. Emil. Had she actually allowed herself to speculate about us? Did she in fact acknowledge our relationship in her own private, painful way?
While mom stood smoking outside the car, I sat transfixed, recalling the smallest details of summer- cracks in sidewalks to the cafe, the quiet front gardens along interstices, heavy doors with small stained glass windows, the way the Midwestern sun felt so familiar and a patch of grass, the remote moments, retracing the traipsing footsteps of someone else, a person much younger, more naive, more trusting.
Summer changed me inside and out, upside down.
It's cold out, windy. Dry leaves rustle. I listen to signature sounds of yet another passing autumn. Someone has built a fire; the streets are hazy and aromatic. Mom is making chicken soup. I hold dear the gift of recollection, thinking of an insouciant childhood in Iran, with two parents, a big brother- now a dream. Was it real?
Autumn.
In my soul.
Rustling.
Soup.
Smoke from chimneys.
Wrapped in down comforter.
Sighing.
Wine.
Fire.
Laughter with family.
Watching rain fall.
Returning from daydreams smiling.
In autumn.
In love with life again.
Morning. I'm dressed for work. I can hear mom pulling open and closing drawers in the next room. Empty wineglass. I dreamt that I was running on Chicago streets in my underwear at night. Then I was in Columbus, again at night, at a street festival. There were women on motorcycles whose engines revved, boomed. But Tariq wasn't there. He was out of town. I separated from the people I knew and ran through crowds of men who still occupied the now emptying streets. Streetlights flickered. Someone set off fireworks whose sparks showered me. I covered my head. Cracks. Howls. Hisses. Then I was in Palestine. It was now day. I stood at an open window and looked out, saw a young mother and her two sons. It was my mother, my brother, and I. White houses covered nearby hills. There were no bombs, but there was no peace either. Then I saw him.
The moon is astonishing tonight. I pull open the curtains and let its metallic light stream into my room. I'm twenty-seven, less apt to dream of unlikely things, less hopeful, just a little more resigned. Tonight I won't struggle against circumstances. Sorrow is as vital as the moon, as steady, as cyclical. My silver sadness. Round and circumambient. Waning. Waxing.
I close my bedroom door to this stone temple, and blue. A chill outside. Perfection. Autumn unleashes my appetite, but I do not abuse the privilege. I'm exhausted. My life feels like a tasteless fruit- not one, but an orchard, acres of it. A bad crop. I don't want to seem ungrateful, but I can't help but feel I am not good enough, that I made a mistake somewhere, that I do not belong.
I'm never satisfied. There's always something missing, but I'm too afraid to place my ear to the wall of this fear and hear its murmur, its sordid soliloquies. Afraid to discover my true self, my animal, angry, natural self.
Maybe there's nothing there at all, after all, but hollow silence.
It would be selfish to kill myself, anticlimactic to prematurely end this game and never know the outcome. I should continue to fool myself and awaken again.
Is it crazy that I'm at Metro, a bar in the city, writing by candlelight? Will I seem strange? Do I care? The man sitting near me just inquired if I'm writing a novel.
We laughed artificially. Before I could answer he asked, "Or is that your diary?" Then he offered some of his calamari, which he was enjoying with a female companion.
After drinking three gin and tonics with him I dropped my diary off at the car and walked to another bar where I befriended Beth- a warm southern gal with fiery red hair that encompassed her entire upper body. She introduced her companion Harley- a quiet man, a teacher. I took them to Martuni's where we ordered martinis, and when Beth and I talked seriously Harley became more sullen. I suggested we go to The Mint for Karaoke. I sang. Beth sang. Harley, being shy, did not sing.
Eventually we parted, driving in different directions on tortuous San Francisco avenues, parting forever, returning to our respective lives.
I understand that not every experience in life will be a pleasant one. The most logical thing for an otherwise illogical, emotional being is to accept life's many faces- the benign, as well as the inhospitable.
It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what brought me here, identify the person who inspired the present. I cannot recall his face, her heart. In the most ordinary moments of everyday life I am still surprised to discover it was I who ventured blindly to Columbus and played blindly the mellifluous instrument of love. He was an innocent child, lovely but wild. Abrupt. Inexperienced. Dissonant. Tone-deaf. But pristine. Lovely. Just lovely.
And where is the moon all the while we strive, while we fight, while we fool ourselves and each other with so much hysteria? Where is the ocean while we lie to ourselves and each other? Where is the beauty and wonder, the lava, the ebbing liquid and remarkable molecule as we cheat ourselves and on each other?
Will all this dissonance resolve itself, not just in me, in my lifetime, but within the very folds and waves of a wider universe? Will our indignation find a peaceful place to rest itself, its laurels, and inspire someone, something fantastic?
Living truthfully, painfully, beautifully. And I'm not even doing anything remarkable. I'm a waiter. My world is small.
A candle. The vents exhale. The humming heat lulls and relaxes me. Days darken early but this wintery departure of natural light doesn't weigh heavy on my heart. I make the most of it.
I worry about common things- our lack of medical and dental benefits, our overall financial insecurity. I worry about mom and feel ineffectual as son. What if something catastrophic happens? We continue to live in a dysfunctional time whose enormous axles crush our bones and hopes. What will become of us?
I don't want to see things as they are. Not tonight. I don't want to stand on the razor edge looking over the vast darkness of doubt, a valley of ugly truths, freefalling into black folds of a desert, unheard, unnoticed, forgotten. I resent this social system. In which I live. To which I contribute.
Weeks pass like speeding vessels along arbitrary tracks, traversing a spectrum of scenes: deserts, mountains, tunnels, wide open spaces. Moods. Colors. Temperatures. Feelings of all nationalities. Countenances of many an ethnicity.
I am an octopus. Three hearts. All pumping. All reeling. All breaking. The numerous colors I change into and out of in a single day blur the distinguishing borders of time, crawling along the ocean's floor, feeling my environment, tasting it with my body, refusing to surface.
I go to St. James and keep my grandmother company, eat with her, watch television with her, play cards with her.
So much is happening in the world as we speak- deaths and rebirths, celebrations and divorces, so many people. I feel them in my bones. Every moment feels as though a storm is coming.
The immigration attorney tells me that I am not helpless, that I am still in control of the game by having taken initiative. I chuckle and drive through downtown San Francisco listening to Sade. I come home and retreat into my high-ceilinged den- this diary- turning on the fans, dimming the lights, circulating the otherwise stagnant air of a life without purpose, recording the wishes and colorful moments that are made of silk and tulle, beneath which lies further meaning, the skin of life, the beauty and eroticism of poetry.
To naturalize...
The bridge calls me again.
On Tuesday I will take mom to the city again where she will be sworn in as a U.S. citizen. She sighs that finally, again, she has a home, a country.
The soul speaks to the persona, beseeches the persona: Emil, I honor you. I am honored to live this life as you, in you, with you... I depend on you.
Perhaps the depth in which I presently drown is actually the height of my existence. Maybe I'll never be happier.
I stand before a mirror and promise frightened, bewildered brown eyes that everything will be all right, that he is not alone as he thinks. I beg him to stop worrying, become indignant and stress that I will not live in fear, in doubt. 'For a few days, at least,' I whisper. He lowers his brown eyes, thinks about it a minute, wonders if he can, looks up again, 'OK.'
When I open my wings the wind seems to stir and meet them.
When I bend in fear to shadows they envelop my body, swallow my flesh and drink my blood.
When I cast a pebble of doubt into the waters of my self the surface surprises me and does not shatter, but ripples melodically.
I am not afraid. Emil is. I am not worried about a single thing. Emil does the worrying. I accept life and welcome death. It is Emil- the persona, the son, the waiter, the student, the body and mind, who resists and struggles. I can fathom anything. I have already been. I created myself and begin every day from a well of fire and experience, in a body without musculature, cavities, without identity and limitations. I am nature and soul. I am and I am not. Words cannot explain me. It is Emil who struggles to describe me, contain me. He is my child. I adore him. I admire him. And I look after him.
Night. Window cracked open. Starless thoughts. The neighbor's voice. Otherwise quiet streets. Hills, like silent giants crouched in the night. Dream! I urge my body. Don't just carry on. Dream. Poeticize. Go mad. Drink and be drunk. Taste terrible bitter life. Sweeten it with all your will. Spill it everywhere and share it.
Every turn an opportunity to touch someone else and enchant yourself. Mean every word. Touch each mood. Walk barefoot in the hot sands of anger, slip on the cool pebbles of serenity, swim in the tumult of laughter, drown in rare guffaws, choke on love and tears. Pause at unlikely moments and places, and wonder if you can go on another second. Continue, not out of sheer passion, but basic biological instinct. Be on the brink of another madness. One wilder than before. Booming.
There are three days left of this self-imposed retreat from loved ones. Three days to revel in mystery, solitude, and soliloquies- these intangible moments that I do not have to justify to anyone. Absence of friendship and dependence has resulted in loyalty to my diary, upon which only natural light falls.
Still, I can't help passion drowning in deeper waters. I imagine a life devoid of petty concerns- a life gingerly made of miraculous blocks placed conveniently in heavenly order: wonderful friends, a fulfilling career, creative bursts, health, a home, and a zany dog!
Last night I dreamt of passionate kisses, many lovers. I was passionately kissing my brother.
I've been meaning to ask my mother something, but she has a way of flashing impenetrable colors of warning that force me to swallow my love, my curiosity, my own body, and I retreat.
I eat very little. I want to feel empty, light, lightheaded. I want to know patience. Practice grace. It makes me sick to see people devour a meal. A full stomach. An empty soul devoid of light and virtue.
My grandmother and I are watching television, and as much as I cherish her she challenges me, upsets me, is inadvertently hurtful. Her initial high of my being published has worn off and she has little reason to respect me. She appreciates ambition, stature, money, the acquisition of property and homes. Typical immigrant mentality. I am a disappointment because I do not meet the Assyrian standard, and while I scoff at this standard a part of me feels bruised. Embarrassed. Now she covers the pastries and yawns, states that she's going to bed, but sinks back a while longer and admires the flowers on the mantle, which she's picked from her bountiful garden. Gardens bring her profound joy.
Now she rises with effort from her chair. May the night be good to her.
Alone again. What shall we talk about? The transgendered moon? Masturbation? Dreams? George Sand? Shall we sit in silence and listen to the house breathe and cough, its bones cracking? I'm lying on the floor writing, my heart against the ground. A kind of truce. Not stepping on it, but in communion with it, breathing with it, naked and vulnerable with it. Defenses down. I am here. In a future I did not dream. In a life I never wished for.
Life is a beast that does not protect her offspring. She has no maternal instincts. One is spit out from one moment to the next in a string of coincidences until an entire lifetime has flashed itself into obscurity, and no one remembers you- a single speck traveling on the wagging tail of a universe that's barking, shitting, and yet to which we attribute so much significance because we refuse to believe that we are simply parasites in its fur, on its behind. So, enjoy the ride on the ass of life. Make something of your daily haul. Feel more than your environment ever encourages you to feel. Open your heart. Spend less money and more time. You are a miracle that'll never be fully acknowledged. Acknowledge yourself. And each other.
Marvel at the beauty, the sumptuousness, the craftsmanship of every moment, of each layer upon layer upon layer...
What a waste to only live on the terrible surface, succumbing only to hunger, anger, war, betrayal, politics, disease, religion, money. What a waste to live with your back to the majestic scene, to nature, a breathtaking moment in time, a sunset, a striking woman, a moving piece of music and history, only to turn around when it is too late and the moment is gone. And you are too old, your senses frayed.
Life is an open field through which I run wildly, kicking, braying, forgetting inhibition, advice, prior knowledge.
Mom's swearing in ceremony was today. She said it was a gorgeous day for her even though it rained. We arrived at Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco, parked in a garage, and started by foot toward our destination. I asked to see mom's papers, which she dug out of her purse and handed to me. I froze in my tracks. Mom looked at me incredulously. I chuckled and looked at my watch. 'We're supposed to be at Masonic Center, not Moscone Center. Come on, we'll take a taxi.'
Moments later we are being whisked away through a madness of rain, cars, pedestrians, and traffic lights. Mom smiles, "I haven't been in a taxi since Iran." I smile too, pleased with her childlike response.
When we arrive at our proper destination mom is ushered to the main floor, and I upstairs to the visitors' gallery. The female judge who performs the ceremony is likable enough, but I do not stand for her or the flag. Mom is now officially a U.S. citizen, and I her foreign son.
Again we caught a taxi in the downpour, and I looked out the foggy window at beautiful San Francisco with the sense that I will never feel entirely at home here, no matter how many friends I make, no matter how many years I lose here. I will always have one vagrant foot elsewhere, across the globe, on the eroding soil of a past in Iran.
I took my grandmother to Modesto to visit family. Nostalgia and curiosity provoked me and I ended up at The Brave Bull. I wanted to find Rodney, see him, talk to him, and within minutes of arriving at the bar in he walked! He saw me and smiled, walked over. We kissed and hugged. "I've been reading your diary on the internet. A straight Assyrian friend told me about it. She loves it and wants to meet you," he said. I ordered drinks and we talked for some time, catching up. Two years ago Rodney would have drunk himself into a stupor, but tonight he switched to soda after two beers. For the first time Rodney spoke of his father's abuse, tearfully showing the scars from the time his father threw him into a window.
Sexuality.
Identity.
Evolution.
Waves.
Breath.
Death.
In the morning I open this notebook and painstakingly paint each sand grain a more vibrant color than it actually is. The page crinkles under the moisture of words.
Fireflies.
Wild horses.
Waterfalls.
A lone tree.
I happened to be driving past Stephanie's grandmother's house when a car pulled up, Sally in the passenger seat. I made a U-turn. Sally struggled to get out of the car. I walked up and extended my hand, which surprised the old woman. "Give me a hug!" she ordered playfully. "I love you," she said into my shoulder and we squeezed each other. A woman I did not know came out of the house, "It's not often that Sally gets to hug someone so cute!" Sally seemed older, slower, weaker. She immediately commented on my weight loss, invited me in, but I said I had to go.
May the rest of her days be as kind to her as she's been to me...
I'm ready. Ready for the rest of this life. This thing. This flapping of mythical wings. This mythical creature traversing stained glass pages of a broken book. I'm ready. Ready as fiction. Charged as fantasy. Revved as erotica.
Soul.
Searches.
Solitude.
Score (musical.)
Not salvation.
Salivation.
I have to go to Berkeley and read Lion's Courtesan again at a reading for Male Lust. I don't want to read that story that was written so long ago, by what now seems like someone else...