Why I moved back

February 13, 2006
iranian.com

A friend of mine who moved back to Iran sent me the following as his response to the question "why did you moved back?" -- MB

This is a strange land.

It is full of contradictions.

It is a place where everything has two faces.

Every one has a double life

Everything has multiple meanings.

The nature of this contradiction is in our blood.

It is in our soul.

It is in our hearts.

You cannot escape it, yet it offers you the best of escapes.

You cannot hide from it yet it offers you a world of hiding places.

Scholars spend years exploring our literature for the hidden treasures within the lines of our poets.

Our spoken language is full of stories beneath the songs.

Even in our architecture you will find the two worlds: The interior and the exterior.

Yet with all its complexity, it is a land which perplexes the soul, challenges the mind and breaks your heart.

Once it has a grip on you, it will never let go.

Once it has captured your heart, it will do to everything to break it.

And yet it will shine the path to your soul.

How strange to find it again.

How beautiful to fall in love with it again.

How wonderful to give it back the soul it implanted in you the day you were born.

I am back in this land.

A place where you feel like you do not belong but it owns you.

A land that can steal your soul if you are not careful.

A land that will make you feel more alive than you have ever felt before.

This is Persia. A land I was born in and a land where I shall grow in.

A land whose grip on life shall never cease and forever shall remain as mysterious as its people, language, heart and soul.

Taste it and it shall bound you by it spell for all the remaining days of your life.

How could you not come back to this land?