good omens, good times

Nothing can be wild unless you consent to feel tame.
 

 My last trip I took to Kurdish Iran auspiciously
landed me next to the most amazing woman I could
possibly hope to meet.  At first glance, she seemed
drag queen-ish: her eyebrows thickly drawn on about a
centimeter higher than they should be, her neon lip
liner a completely different color than her lipstick
(harkening me back to the days of high school when I
idiotically paired black lip liner with frosty white
lipstick), and her hair a mess of color-damaged fake
curls piled into a hillock underneath her flowered
scarf.  She seemed like a badly dressed Tehrani woman,
obsessed with her looks and probably just as gossipy
as the rest (women here often have nothing better to
talk about than other women and their looks).  She
first came to me like a breeze through the automatic
doors of the hotel where everyone was breakfasting.
I, as usual, was alone outside breakfasting on a
cigarette.  On these tours, there is always someone
who takes it upon themselves to befriend me,
dumbfounded and feeling pity for my single status.
It’s one of the beautiful things about Iran; just when
you have given up on the people here, there is always
someone waiting to exceed your expectations of
generosity and love for a perfect stranger.  She
seemed overzealous to meet me, urging me to eat
something, and offering her assistance in anything I
might need.  “I want to be your friend,” she stammered
in her broken English and then smiled her
face-encompassing, gorgeous smile that I would soon
come to fall in love with.  
 
She turned out to be exactly the woman I had only
dreamed this patriarchal society could produce –its
antidote.  Her confidence and strength hit you in the
face like an air bag – I mean, pulling off that look
in itself takes more confidence than I could muster –
and her fearlessness and refusal to take shit from
anyone effectively deflected any man’s machismo or
bigotry they could hope to discharge.  But she was
soft too, and feminine…and actually incredibly
friendly (as opposed to most other Tehran women I’ve
met).  You had to love her, her charm was undeniable.
I was awe-struck as she commandingly assumed the
microphone from our stunned tour guide and commenced
to cracking jokes and singing traditional Iranian
songs to the delight of all the bus passengers.
Always the first to get up and start a dance party on
the bus, she was also indisputably superior at shaking
up and down the aisle with more grace than you would
expect on a bouncing platform, delighting in the
attention she incited as she rolled her hips and
smiled seductively at men and women alike.  As for
myself, I am once again a “bruised banana,” as my
friend likes to refer to me, seeing that my thighs are
now peppered with purple traces of my multiple
descents into bus seats and arm rests while attempting
to display my own dubious grace on the bus.  I am
forever in debt to her for showing me what a powerful
and sexy woman looks like here.  For one, it doesn’t
involve subtlety or mystery; I think the shroud is
mystery enough.  I learned that the most confident
women know how to get attention but never need it. I
don’t even think she knows how to be shy, a trait that
is priceless in life.  And though she now has a
boyfriend of three years, she doesn’t want to remarry,
a flagrant rejection of an ideology so ingrained in
Iranians, that evidently I only have a year to find a
husband, and she simply dismisses it all with a smile.
In a world where most women’s lives culminate in
housewifedom, she delegates an electronics business, a
line of work primarily designated for a man, and does
it in her gaudy flowery jackets that I would never be
caught dead in but that she somehow makes look
graceful.  What a broad…She is indiscriminating,
loving, and impenetrable all at the same time.  I
absolutely love her and my “Iranian Neda” will forever
be intertwined with my image of her.
 
As for the rest of my excursion in these parts, its
fabulousness consisted of, but is not limited to,
swimming in salty sea water, where I couldn’t sink
even if I tried to – it was heavenly, lounging around
all day in the sun wearing a bikini, which is glorious
beyond words when for over a month you aren’t allowed
to enjoy the same sun that boys can frolic in freely,
spending the day at a five star hotel on the beach
where the glittering lobby proudly donned every flag
of the world except for that of the US (quite
humorously, I might add), having tea on the top of a
mountain in a carpeted hut decorated with Christmas
lights and hanging lanterns and roofed by a starry
night with traditional Iranian musical accompaniment,
and singing a disastrous version of “Amazing Grace”
into the bus microphone to excited applauds from
everyone.  The bus we rode in was indeed a “party
bus.”  We would close all the shades to conceal our
debauchery from the police, take off our scarves and
unbutton our jackets, blast the music, and everyone
would get up and start singing and dancing on this
vibrating, dark bus.  It was amazing.  I am beginning
to become quite fond Iranian pop music after listening
to it so exorbitantly, and now I have these crazy
memories to associate it with.  But then they started
playing American music and when Sean Paul randomly
came on, everyone paused to watch me try and shake my
ass down to the floor while the bus was bouncing
around everywhere.  They played “I Will Survive” twice
in a row and everyone was screaming the words while I
did my best John Travolta.  It was a combination of a
disco and an exciting soccer game in there, so much so
that I lost my voice screaming so much.  The best was
when our tour guide decorated his face with bright
pink lipstick like he was five, tied a scarf on his
head, and danced around with us like he was one of the
girls.  It was spectacular.  I learned traditional
Kurdish dancing from some cute Kurdish boys, smoked
out of the most beautiful hookah at the summit of a
mountain town where all the houses were carved out of
boulders, and ate the most amazing food (the cheese
from Tabriz is to die for).  But most importantly, I
discovered my favorite thing about Iran: people are
not afraid to show their affection for one another
here.  In the states, real displays of affection are
usually preceded by the consumption of alcohol or some
other “loosener.”  Here, it is just normal
life…telling someone how much you love them, or
hugging and kissing a total stranger.  They are
uninhibited is this way and it allows people to feel
comfortable enough to do things like get up and dance
or sing a song in front of forty strangers without
feeling self conscious. 
 
On another note, my cousin thinks that the government
is following me.  Evidently, the guy that followed me
from Tehran to Kashan (which is five or six hours
away) works for the government and because I’m an
American that took pictures of the old US embassy,
this incites reason for suspicion.  Because of this, I
can’t go to Israel, or if I did, I couldn’t come back
to Iran.  Their secret service is their army here, and
like Israel, every young boy has to go.  Needless to
say, they spend a lot of money on keeping suspicious
people out of Iran (it’s the most secret country I
know) and apparently they would be able to find out
somehow whether I had been to Israel or not because
the intelligence here is top notch.  Plus, they are
especially scrutinizing against Americans.  So Israel
is totally out of the question for me because I am
unable to change my ticket to fly out of another
country, and I’d like to be able to come back here one
day.  It’s okay though, it makes my decision to come
back early easier.  I’ve decided that I hate Tehran
(the city where all my family lives) and since my
traveling abilities throughout the country are quite
limited due my having a vagina and no husband, once
I’m done with all the tours (there are only so many
you can take) I am coming home.  I’ll be home August
11th and I can’t wait to see you all.  I was going to
go to India but since I have no idea what I’m doing,
no one to go with, and hear that it’s quite similar to
Iran anyway, I think I’ll save that for another,
better timed, trip.  I could just say screw it and go
in totally blind but that last time I did that, well,
I ended up here.  Plus, I have decided to back to
school for writing and am really excited about getting
that underway when I come back to the states.  I don’t
know where I’ll move to…I’m thinking Boston because
it’s good for writers.  New York is good too but I so
loved Boston and miss it terribly.  Anyway, I must see
you all when I get back.  I am beyond excited to come
home.  I’m literally counting the days.  I won’t be
doing much writing for the month that I’m in Turkey
and Greece because I’m not bringing my computer but
I’ll try to journal as much as I can and then
transcribe it.  My trip there is a week away and the
first thing I’m going to do is have a drink and a
cigarette in the sun wearing the most nothing outfit I
can muster.  It’s going to be heaven.