A Taste of Normalcy

The Train

 “Place of Martyrdom” is the English translation of
the Farsi word “Mashhad,” the name of the second
largest city in Iran (aside from Tehran) as well as my
last point of venture in Iran up to date.  The slight
feeling of nervousness and apprehension accompanying
my eight hour train ride to this gorgeous city was
somewhat numbed by the fact that I had been “ping
pong-ing” around Iran for the past three weeks, with
ephemeral pauses lasting no more than three days at
the most in one city.  At this point, pure inertia
served as both my propellant and sedative, and for
this reason alone, I was relieved of the inwardly
contemplative spiral of nerves that often prefaces any
visit with either family, people that I haven’t seen
in some time, or people that I don’t know very well.
The family that I would be staying with in Mashhad
occupied all three of these categories for me, but
seeing as how I arrived at the train station a mere
fraction of my normal faculty, it didn’t quite matter.

 They were friends of my dad’s whom in my naïve youth,
I had counted as my blood family (with Iranians, its
difficult tell who your actual family is or isn’t,
especially for an eight year old) but had long been
estranged from them ever since somewhere around my
dubious puberty spurt.  Our visits with them averaged
about once a month, if my memory serves me correctly,
and more often during summers.  I sat in my seat; half
brooding over the bitch next to me who cunningly
exploited my lack of familiarity with the trains here
to steal my window seat and who I hadn’t the care or
vocabulary to debate the injustice with, and half
trying to jog my muddled mess of a brain for some gem
of remembrance as to these people’s personalities.
They had lived in America when I was little but moved
back to Iran sometime later…or split their time
between the two countries…the details are still
unclear to me as to where they actually “lived” this
whole time.  Nonetheless, they were auspiciously
cultured in both worlds, an amazing feat in my
opinion, but their humble manner belied this
extraordinary achievement. 
 
 I had seen them at a party given a week before my
departure from America and it was there that I re-met
the gracious couple and their seemingly demure
daughter as well as her soon to be husband.  We talked
briefly to arrange plans for my visit to their house
in Mashhad and after making my rounds through the
crowd answering questions such as, “Oh wow, six
months? That’s so long, why do you want to go there?”
and so forth, I think I was so exhausted from keeping
face with the double-whammy of grown-ups and Iranians
(imagine the wreck of nerves I was driving up to that
bundle of fun) that I hid in the downstairs bedroom
sprawled out on a bed for the duration of the party.
My chat with them at the party provided me with
nothing to go off of except for the fact that they
actually liked Iran, and so aside from this particular
curiosity, I surfaced from my train trance empty
handed – I would have to go in blind on all sides. 
 
 It was okay, my last few brief encounters with them
since the party, though entirely useless in terms of
unfurling any real personality traits or any other
useful tools in establishing a connection, revealed to
me that a) they spoke English fluently, b) they seemed
Americanized in the sense that they at least seemed to
posses a capacity for “chillness,” and Iranian in the
sense of their indefatigable hospitality and welcome,
and c) there would be two out of three of their kids
staying with them; and here’s the kicker, they were my
age!  So, encouraged by the anticipation of spending
time with someone who was actually less than sixty
years my senior, and who I might be able to conduct a
conversation with involving something other than goads
for my constant consumption of food, I put my best
face forward and dove into the crowd of bustling
passengers climbing over each other in attempts to
escape the train station and meet their loved ones.
 
 I was completely disarmed by the ease of the visit.
Their house, gorgeous and comfortable beyond
reckoning, I was proudly told was built by the father
of the family.  I stayed in the guest room, which was
nicer than 90% of the rooms that I’ve lived in,
accompanied by its own bathroom.  There was fast
internet access, phones that could easily call America
on the first try, and electricity that didn’t go out
once when I was there!  I was in absolute heaven.
Aside from the material comforts of the visit, there
was the aspect that I was amongst people who could at
least fathom the world I had come from.  They were
easy-going, which is something to be said for
Iranians.  I can’t express how un-chill people are
here.  It’s not necessarily that bad of a thing, some
people hate chillness, but it’s just different.  It’s
the culture, like no one here has ever met a “chill”
person before and they don’t even know what it means
or would look like to be that way.  For example, last
night my aunt actually got mad at me and started
yelling in frustration because I wouldn’t eat
something that she heedlessly bought for me after I
repeatedly told her that I didn’t want it and wasn’t
hungry.  It was so ridiculous that I was just sitting
on this stool cracking up as she exploded a foot away
from me in heated rants of Farsi.  I could just hear
the word “chiiiiiilllllllll” oozing out of my mouth,
in true stoner fashion.  But alas, there is no
“chilling” to be had with my family here in Tehran,
only that of other people’s families in peaceful
places I can only dream of.  So in this regard,
providence visited me on my trip to Mashhad.  Compared
to my relatives in Tehran, staying there was like
being back in Santa Cruz again on 420.
 

The Shrine

 I died and went to heaven…what else can I say to
express the sheer grandeur, magnitude, and
exquisiteness of the Holy Shrine, what attracts most
visitors to Mashhad in the first place.  It is where
the Imam Reza is buried (one the prophets directly
descended from Mohammad – and consequently related to
me!), as well as a couple of theological universities,
a couple of museums, a mosque, numerous courtyards…
the place is just gi-mungous.  And yes, in case you’re
wondering, I had to rock a chador to get in.  And yes,
I had to pretend like I am Muslim.  And, yes I had to
leave my camera behind….which is probably the most
upsetting thing ever because this place is
undisputedly the most beautiful man made place I have
ever seen in all my shenanigans about the world. 
 
 First, let me wax on about this whole chador
business.  I can safely say that the chador is the
most nonsensical item of clothing I could possibly
fathom, it just a big sheet that you hold together
underneath your chin with one hand from the inside so
that you have only one other hand free to hold your
bag or whatever else you need.  It is constantly
slipping back on your head to expose your hair, no
matter how tight you hold it under your chin, and then
you are presented with the idiotic dilemma of how to
fix the damn thing without letting go of the sheet
altogether?!  Here’s the key, you find someplace void
of a crowd of people waiting to get by you (hardly as
easy as it sounds), kneel down and bend your head down
so that you are in a ball and as little of your person
is showing to the world, and then pull it up over your
head so that it completely covering you like a
miniature tent while you fix the scarf that you have
to wear underneath the sheet and whatever else is
going on under there that you had to neglect this
whole time walking around because you have no hands –
you are a gimp, amorphous blob.  It is funny, and so
incredibly ridiculous. 
 
 Walking onto the premises, you are taken aback by the
vast courtyard, like a couple of football fields
covered in Persian rugs, to accommodate all those who
are unable to fit into the multiple halls of the
building housing the actual shrine.  In the middle
there is a huge marble fountain that people are using
to wash themselves in preparation for prayer.  The
courtyard is enclosed by the faces of many buildings,
all of which are decorated in intricately designed
striations, indentations, and inverted dome work,
which are then carefully covered in the most
beautifully colored and elaborately painted tiles to
fit each minute groove perfectly.  I can’t even fathom
the work that went into the behemoth that is the Holy
Shrine.  Everything is absolutely pristine, like a
holy place should be, and a place like this, in a
country like this, should be absolutely filthy, but
it’s like god himself created another day to clean up
shop after the tens of thousands that must visit there
everyday.  When you enter the building of the shrine,
you have to part with your shoes, which is fine
because the carpets there are probably cleaner than
the shirt you’re wearing, and you walk in and are
immediately ensconced by families everywhere.  It’s
like you just walked into the Alladin section of
Disneyland because the little people are running
rampant, like they all just downed a pack of pixistix
and a liter of Crush fifteen minutes ago.  Just
imagine: no shoes, your parents are enraptured in some
holy trance that doesn’t seem to be coming to an end
anytime soon, you’re five, and you’re in the biggest
carpeted living room in the world!  I would be running
around in circles with my hands wailing like a flaming
idiot as well. The walls and ceilings are covered in
tiny little pieces of mirror, all different shapes and
sizes that are pieced together by hand, like a mosaic.
There are chandeliers everywhere, emitting this holy
luminescence, and the light bounces off one wall to
another wall to the ceiling like it is alive in itself
and each tiny piece is at a slightly different angle
so that the light is reflected from every which way
and you have no idea where it is coming from and it
looks and feels like you are in one big gigantic
diamond sparkling in the sun, or a prism.  It is
absolutely insane to walk in; it is all you can do to
not bump into everyone everywhere because you are just
so engrossed by the vast diamond encompassing you.  It
is what heaven would look like if you believe in that
kind of thing.       

 The thing about being in this holy place and being in
a sheet is that you are, in fact, finally invisible.
No one cares about you at all; they are all here
because they are so incredibly into their religion
that they don’t even care about flagrantly pushing you
out of the way to get as close to the shrine as
possible, and so you can just sit there in your
invisible sheet and watch these religious people
completely let themselves go.  There are grown men and
women just bawling their eyes out and wailing
uncontrollably.  It’s sad but beautiful.  All the
while you hear these lurid, melancholy voices over
microphones just pouring their hearts out into song.
Even though you don’t know what they are saying, you
still feel your heart sink with every word.  As you
navigate through the rooms trying to escape the insane
pull of the crowd toward the actual shrine (much like
Mecca) you begin to understand how religion can be
such a power.  Men who would never let a tear escape
their eyes normally are soaking their towels with
currents of tears falling from their faces and moaning
cathartically with the rest of the mourning men.
Women, strong enough to withstand the pressure of
everyday life in Iran, breakdown here, of all places,
looking up at you with their huge wet eyes that are a
mesmerizing and heartbreaking mixture of shame and
pride.  It is brilliant, terrible, and tremendous.  I
know that I cannot do justice to my experience there
through mere words but it had to be attempted.  In
truth, I am not a holy or religious person in the
least.  In fact, those of you who know me well
probably would agree that I am somewhat of an
antichrist. But I found myself almost levitating with
this feeling of holiness and reverence that I have
never experienced before.  It truly was heavenly in
every sense of the word.