Pedestrian

I wish I was in Tehran right now.

Not because I like a particular candidate. Not because I believe in change or hope or even elections.

But because some election seasons, that dark, haunted city is sprinkled with life and color. Like a flower that blooms to life every few years, only to fall back into a deep, incurable coma for which you are never certain there will be an awakening.

Perhaps knowingly, to spur a higher turnout, the custodians of that city shred those ropes from our mouths and lungs and bodies and let us out for air. And while their motivation may be less than honest, I will take every opportunity given me to take in a breath or two, and contemplate the energy that lies wasted day and day out, in this grand, glorious place. I contemplate what could have been, what should have been but what never is, while it dances vividly all around me and I know that its death, like its birth, I will soon see.

And every time, I can’t help but wonder: maybe, this time around, the ending will be different.

Our minds never tire of playing tricks on us.

People around the world find it fascinating, pathetic or strange that we Iranian youth have flown into the streets the way we have. We have done so out of desperation, fatigue, hope and curiosity.

MirHossein Mousavi became prime minister two years before I was born. One year after the war. Two years after a revolution. In the midst of chaos and bloodshed of unimaginable proportions. Times were not easy, for anyone. And there we were, dropped into this world amidst all of that. Not quite knowing our place because our fathers seemed to have figured it all out for us already. Not quite knowing our place because surrounded by blood and smoke and shadows, it’s not easy to grasp on too long or too hard to anything anyways.

And maybe those fathers were just as helpless because they too were in many ways “wasted” to an ideal and a utopia that never became. Having to battle the longest war of the 20th century is no small feat. Having to pick up the ruins and built anew is no small feat. It may be portrayed that way on Iranian TV – but it leaves one often times crippled and helpless and paralyzed.

We live in the shadow of our fathers’ mistakes. That is the story of life everywhere. Nobody ever said on his deathbed :”If only my dad had done things differently”. You are the one you must answer to. And yet, my generation still can’t help but feel disconnected to what lay before us for it was such a tremendous decision made entirely in our absence. And it was simply assumed that when it was our turn, we too would decide like our forefathers. We too would choose to continue their path.

Children love to play dress-up. It allows them to glimpse, if just for a moment, into that dark, mysterious world of their elders to which they are constantly banned entrance.  I think every election season we get to make believe that we are our fathers, out on the streets, on the pavements, screaming with life and promise … This time around, we are the ones who get to decide where we want this ship to go.

And they let us play. For a while.

I was two years from birth when Mirhossein Mousavi became prime minister. I will be a 25 year old tomorrow when I go out to vote. Second chances don’t come easy Mr. President. Whoever you may turn out to be. And children can not not go on playing dress-up forever.