'Tis the season
On Sunday
morning my family will awaken and dutifully dress in new clothing
from the skin out and stand around our haft-seen at 4:34 in the
morning
March 16, 2005
iranian.com
This morning my roommate Azadeh got an email from her father:
"Don't forget to jump over fire tonight. Love, Dad"
Lest ye be under the mistaken impression that the only holidays
that exist are those alloted careful space on Hallmark shelves,
let me welcome you to Persian New Year. For all the negative
press Middle Easterners get, you think we'd get a teensy bit
of recognition for the creative spark to our holidays. Last night
was Char Shanbeh Soori, involving good food, jumping
over
fire (or carrying old people over fire, which rivals Chapelle's
Show in hilarity), and friends. No presents, just good people
and maybe some dancing if you're one of the 5,000 Iranians to
crowd onto the beach of Mission Bay.
With age, I've broadened my appreciation of Persian holidays.
Rewind. I grew up, indeed, I think all three of us Ghahremani
offspring did, with the mistaken impression that we were Christian
Persians. We lived in a Jewish suburb of Chicago. For December
arts and crafts you did red and green or you did blue and white.
I went with red and green and called it a day. My sister explored
more, going through a brief period of exploring Judaism, tacking
a homemade Star of David on her door and issuing my mom a stern
warning: "don't CHOUCH it!" As teenagedom took over,
that was replaced with a "stay out" type of sign and
she expanded her talents beyond construction paper -- but that's
another story for another day.
In any case, like I said, Santa was the man. I tried to ignore
my dismay that so many of my friends had oh so many nights of
gifts coming their way and did my best to loot at Christmas,
before jetting to an exotic warm destinations ("Reaganomics
worked for me!"). However we had one secret in our pockets:
Right around March 21st, Mom would call us in sick for the day,
citing family obligations. (For many children, duping their teachers
in this way was gift enough.) And hey, any family where staying
home on a school day and dressing up in new clothes and eating
til you're sick and then ceremonially accepting wads of freshly
printed cash from family friends is a family I want to be part
of.
 A few days before my "sick day", I would break the
news to the lunch table. My American friends leaned in closer.
"You
get *what*?" I'd beam back the free advertising smile of
the daughter of a dentist. "Yup, money." "Like
how much?"
"It depends."
But it didn't really.
My parents were always extremely generous. Once in awhile there
was a gift. Like the year my dad got into the spirit and bought
me a 'ghettoblaster' and taught me how to dub tapes. Most often
it was crisp cash tucked within the pages of the Quran. God
help me escape the association between Quran pages and Benjamin
Franklin's
face on a sheet of green. Sometimes I think they amortized
the compensation for Iranian-hostage-crisis-related-trauma over
the
course of the years, paying their children in installments.
As we gathered around the haft-seen to take pictures, images
of
my forthcoming trip to loot Musicland danced in my head.
So last night my friends and I jumped over a fire (Persian
Social Code Section 1.1: Always listen to your parents!), symbolically
giving it our weakness and taking its vibrant heat. On Sunday
morning, the actual New Year (vernal equinox/the first day of
spring), my family will awaken and dutifully dress in new clothing
from the skin out and stand around our haft-seen at 4:34 in the
morning. The haft-seen will be a notch more elaborate than last
year, and the lilac plants will make me sneeze as much as I
will have the evening before -- courtesy of Persian men self-doused
in cologne for the cultural society's party (query: why use
ether
when you can use Drakkar?). We'll smile for the camera. My
parents will vigorously snap shots of the endangered specie Son-In-Suit-and-Tie,
and we'll each critique the photos before deleting and retaking
in an incessant cycle (because we expect somehow
to
look GOOD in these photos at 5am).
In the dawn light, we'll each silently make wishes on the year
to come. Some of us will wish for world peace. Others will wish
for new and exciting people in our lives. One family member may
wish for a strong stock market (hi Dad!). Others yet will wish
for all the hoopla to be over so they can return to bed. Then,
a moment late (and thus right on schedule), my mom will remind
us that we should have held coins as the year changed for good
luck and fortune, launching yet another year of cheerful poverty
for their artsy children :)
 Ritual complete, family and guests will slink back to their
rooms. Then I might make a quick return to slip a few more pieces
of the baklava, but there will be no witnesses to my crime. As
I wander back down the hallway to my own room, I don't know what
will go through my mind. What I do know is that part of me will
be very very glad that there is no construction paper that comes
close to capturing the colors of this holiday.
About
Lilly Ghahremani is an attorney/literary agent and
owner of Full Circle Literary, LLC, based in California. She
is actively seeking new voices in fiction, nonfiction and childrens
books, with an emphasis on multicultural literature. Please visit fullcircleliterary.com for
more information.
.................... Peef
Paff spam!
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