Preface: When I was a little kid, I lived in Tehran. Nearly all of my earliest memories take place in Iran. They're dim, and I want to try and remember them. The main thing I remember about my childhood in Iran is that it was very happy, very idyllic. There are glimpses, like seeing a herd of sheep in the street below, and longer memories, like a morning at Geti's school, trying to learn how to trill my R's like the other kids--mostly Iranian--could. I want to try to collect these memories, and learn from them, if I can. Or I at least want to catalogue as many as I can before they're forgotten.

Death

I came very close to being killed on three occasions in Iran--by drowning, by head trauma and by electric shock.

1. I remember that I wasn't supposed to leave the apartment unsupervised. My parents locked me in, even while they were home, so I must have had a pattern of escaping. Barely, I can see an overstuffed chair, sliding towards a door. Standing on it, and turning the lock. I remember looking down at my feet, on the small path in the courtyard behind the apartment building, between the pool and the garden. I know my parents had told me not to walk there. I had a cap gun. It was made of tin, molded tin, and painted blue with black accents.

When I fell in the pool, I sank straight down. I lost hold of my gun. Then I was sitting on the bottom. I remember being absolutely calm. It didn't occur to me that anything was wrong. There was a splash up above, and a guy I knew well had me on the side of the pool. I asked him if he could get my gun too. "Your gum?" That's all I remember him saying. "Your gum." Mistaken. But I know I had that gun later in the States, so he must have gotten it. I don't remember his name, but he had a big belly. Without him, I would have died in a swimming pool in Tehran.

2. I was walking down the street, reading a comic book. By reading, I mean I think I must have been looking at the pictures, because I was only five when we moved back to the States. Anyway, I'm looking at this comic book, and then I'm on the ground, on my back. There's this big kid looking down at me, smiling. Then all these ladies in chadors are around him, yelling in Farsi, pointing. Then my mom has me. I remember waking up, and going out, or looking out, on a balcony. It had a concrete floor, and then there was puke all over it. Hawaiian Punch purple. I walked into my mom's room, and I think I started convulsing at that point. I remember flopping around.

The thing I remember about the hospital, was that I had a concussion, which explained why they kept looking at my eyes. I remember the kid in the bed next to me had burned his hand. I'm guessing, that from how I remember him looking, he was probably twelve or so. He worked, and he had burned his hand dipping it into a bucket of tar. I can't remember what he did. His fingers were fused together. I remember my mom explaining it to me somehow in the hallway on the way out to make it not sound so horrible. I was there for three days.

3. The lights used to go out all the time. You'd be sitting in a room and all the sudden the light would turn off. It was due to the cheaply-made plugs on the end of them. They would come open, and the lamp--or whatever--would turn off. It was a simple matter of snapping the plug shut to turn them on again. I remember reaching over to grab the plug and connect the light again. Then I remember standing in the kitchen, my mom was sitting down. Next, I remember being in the hospital again. But this was a different one, it was a darker room, and I only remember being there, nothing else. Apparently, I came to not long after arriving at the hospital, and the doctor sent me home.

to be continued...

My skin itches something fierce