the time for death

It was February 2021. Covid - isolation. There'd been some dark days. Snow had fallen day after day and had blocked out the light for 3 long days that week. We'd been housebound all week.  By midday on Wednesday the heavy clouds had cleared and the sunshine felt glorious.  

Bright and illuminating, the sunlight burst in through the all cracks and windows and compelled us to go out and embody this lightness.  The  ice and snow that paved our way was sparkling, lighting up the ground ahead where our feet would tread. Each footstep made a satisfying crunch as our feet compressed the thick layer of snow.  We walked listening to the crunching of each other's footsteps, sometimes in sync, sometimes not. Letting our eyes wander across the water we noticed that the water itself only deflected the sun. The water was black and still. That extraordinary early afternoon winter sunlight had made the water in the river impenetrably dark. There was a black body of water in a bright, white wonderland. 

As the path entered the woods alongside the river we were delighted by the thick layer of snow on the branches of the trees and bushes.  The air was still.  We crunched our way on through the stillness looking up at the blue sky, and across at the black water and down at the sparkling snow covererd ground. We stopped at the point where the land ends where there's just water and birds and sky and earth and it was there that we saw him.  

The time was 2.14 pm. His lips were blue when the rope was untied and his cold body was lowered to the ground to lay on the soft brown earth in the brilliant, early afternoon sunlight.

Me and Nazanine Zaghari Radcliffe

Some weeks ago I found myself talking to Richard Radcliffe.  We'd just watched Nazanine's Story.  It was a play about his family and events of the past 3 and half years. The play was about the arbitrary detention his of wife Nazanine in an Iranian jail. She'd been detained at Tehran airport on her way home to London from a regular visit to her family with her then 21 month old daughter.  The play was a reinactment of her story; beginning with her detention in Iran in April 2016 to the present.  In real life her daughter Gabriella had just returned to live in London with her father Richard Radcliffe; Nazanine's husband.  The 5-year old girl is now disconnected from her mother and the family she has known for the past 3 and a half years and Nazanine is still in Evin prison for allegations of  plotting against the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I saw the play at at the Lakeside Theatre, University of Essex with my Iranian born son Ben.  I'd had mixed feelings about going to see the play.  Part of me wanted to ignore the horror, to turn away, to close my eyes and put my hands over my ears so as not to hear their cries, not to remember. I didn't want to get upset and get distracted from my mission to just get on with my life. To get on with my life because I'm not in Evin prison today.  I often think to myself - hey, I'm not in prison today - but it's never a very happy or particularly liberating realisation. Because there's Nazanin Zahari Radcliffe and at least 30 other dual nationals whose lives are being spent in arbitrary detention in Iranian jails.

Since first hearing the alarming news of Nazanine's detention I'd been closely following the horror as it unfolded.    Those headlines in the Guardian, giving updates on Nazanine's story, somehow served to ease my breath, her trials and their anguish gave me an uncomfortable sense of well-being.  Following their story allowed me to relax and take stock of where I was at.  I was not in prison. There's an episode in my life-story that I don't talk about much. I keep it quiet because it's an experience that is awkward to share. It remains buried: deep under a pile of more easily relatable anecdotes and life experiences.  At times when I have told and I've been left feeling like some kind of paranoid fantasist. I've learned that it's best to keep it light-hearted and easily digestible.  It's become a survival story.
 
Now I'm safe. I'm living another episode of my life as a regular, ordinary person.  Living in a secure home with a job that just about pays the bills.  I didn't act on that job offer from the Iranian authorities: I'm not a spy and I'm not in prison.   Life is OK for me these days.  The panic attacks are less frequent and my body is less uptight and my outlook is more often upwards at the clouds and I worry less about what could be lurking around a corner or in the shadows.  I can now walk up and down the streets in daylight and at night, cycle around town and hop on and off buses and trains with feelings of glorious anonymity.  These days I don't give a second thought to carrying or using a mobile phone. Some habits haven't changed. I still like to run. I feel safe if I can run. So I keep fit and alert. I've learned to expect the unexpected and to feel safe in the knowledge that I'm prepared ... just in case.

I'd wanted to watch the play with my son Ben. I wanted Ben to know what it is to be half Iranian;.to have 2 bloodlines from politically opposed countries; to hold 2 passports and to have 2 allegiances. I'd hoped the play would communicate what it means to be a trans-national. Watching the play, I'd felt a deep connection to their story and wanted to talk to Richard Radcliffe who'd been sitting in the front row; watching actors portray the horror of his life over the past 3 and half years. After the performance Ben and I walked down the steps of the auditorium and approached Richard who was in conversation with actors, the producer and academics from the Human Rights Centre.

We got his attention. He looked at me and shook my hand kindly. There was so  much I wanted to say; but just as his wife is stuck in Evin prison the words were stuck in my head.  I tried to say thank you for sharing ... but thanking him was offensive, as if we'd been suitably entertained by this horror. My next thought was to say I can't imagine how horrific this is for you.  No, I couldn't say that because I could imagine it. Maybe I could say I understand what you're going through.  Fuck, no I don't really understand, my experience doesn't justify saying that I understand their experience.  My understanding is a very superficial understanding of their deep and ongoing torment. Then I came up with the word connection.  Yes, that's it, I feel connected to your ...   Oh shit, to their ... what? He'd been using the work story but I couldn't use that term, this isn't just a story, it's real and traumatic and is ongoing, he's living it. It's their life. I can't say it's a story to his face. Neither can I simply say that I liked the play, it would be like saying thanks, that was entertaining. What's on at Lakeside next Tuesday?  I couldn't even bring myself to say it was good, or engaging, or informative.  A simple thanks seemed wrong, thank him for what?  For sharing his experience of ongoing deep trauma? I looked at Richard, knowing his wife is locked up in Evin prison,  looked around at the others; the actors in the play, the host from the Essex Uni Human Rights centre, at my son Ben standing beside me and then I looked back at Richard, noticing his thinning hair and said,
'I feel a deep connection with your case'.

Watching the play, shaking hands with Richard Radcliffe and hearing of the family's new challenges as their daughter Gabriella adapts to life in London all enabled me to express huge my sense of relief.  But that sense of relief is matched by feelings of guilt. Guilt is an odd feeling. Why should I be feeling guilty just because I'm not in prison today? I suppose it could be understood as survivor's guilt.  It's survivor's guilt because it was her that happened to get picked. Nazanine's detention is arbitrary.

arbitrary |ˈɑːbɪt(rə)ri|
adjective
1 based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system: an arbitrary decision.

Nazanine Zaghari-Radcliffe was in Iran to visit her family. She wasn't there to plot against the regime.  Her detention is arbitrary and cruel.  It's an unbearable injustice inflicted on her and her family.

tramadol: Tramadol is pain relief.Sometimes when I'm book ...

tramadol: Tramadol is pain relief.

Sometimes when I'm book ...: Tramadol is pain relief. Sometimes when I'm book packing, I take half a pill in the morning, just after the 10am meeting, and another ...

chance encounters

The last time they had seen me I was running through the sand in tears. I was rejected by my family and was living on the run because I didn’t really know what else to do.  I was running to ease the pain.  But I use the term running loosely, mostly the running was in my mind, it raced around in circles, a cycle of despair.  My body tried to run, but mostly it walked and rode and swam and took comfort with strangers, it moved until it was too tired to move any further and then it would stop, briefly, as I slept.

That day I was running from the street where I’d been waiting to catch a glimpse of my young children as they boarded the school bus. They’d looked away and closed the curtains to shield themselves from the desert sun and from the sight of their wild looking, scary mother, a grief ridden form; a lone figure on the sand.  They clutched their school bags, wore neat and tidy school uniforms and had bellies full of sustenance provided by the Nanny. ‘Safe and Well’ said the report from an officer at the embassy, sent by CAFCASS to check on the boys’ well being after the abduction.

The couple I’d known as friends drove past me dressed for work, smart entrepreneurs heading for a day of regular business, there were no embraces when chance had us meet that day, there was a gulf between us, (it crossed my mind that maybe they regarded my pitiful state as somehow contagious) we had been close over the years, that family and mine. Our lives were a series of walks in the Alborz mountains, picnics, parties, we’d done things together as families, theirs and mine … but that day when we encountered one another on the sand there was a deep chasm; no common ground on which we could base our relationship; I was outcast and they were together on their track, forging a path to a successful business, they looked at me through vacant eyes, a glance across the desert sun and sand. We acknowledged each other, politely and then they were in a hurry, had a bus to catch!

I had time, I ran and walked and cried until I was exhausted and then I’d get some sleep, and that’s how I survived.

                                                                           

Now it’s springtime. My boy is 14 years old and we bounced along the path on our way to a café in his neighborhood, chatting about this and that and who’s doing what where, and our respective social events of the night before … we walked alongside the river flowing merrily beneath our feet and running over rocks and forging a smooth path for itself, as the running water eroded the rough stone surfaces that over time had and made them smooth, there we were, me and my boy and the flow of the water all running downhill together.  We ordered croissant and coffee for me and hot chocolate and apple pie for him and we sat there, together at ease and taking pleasure in each others company. 

I love time with my children, it’s so nourishing, and when he stands tall and looks at me, face to face and then reaches out for physical contact, holds my arm to guide me safely across a busy street, or holds on tight as we part and says ‘I love you’ I know it’s real. 

It’s been a long journey, a relentless and ongoing campaign but there are times when I can stop and mark a milestone, and realize the point at which I find myself.  And seeing them that day as we walked out of the café was one of those times. I was greeted with big smiles, wide-open arms and big hugs,  not only by Mr. and Mrs. but also by their daughter and the brother of Mrs. who I’d met only on several occasions and over a decade ago.  Body language speaks volumes and it made me glow that my boy got to see his mother getting such a genuine and warm greeting from members of the enemy camp; the universe was showing him that his mother is no monster, that she is loved and accepted. We were in tune with the world, touched by humanity through a chance encounter on a beautiful spring day.

Tramadol is pain relief.

Sometimes when I'm book packing, I take half a pill in the morning, just after the 10am meeting, and another after lunch break at 2pm to soothe my time at work.  The pills provide a sense of well being.

My feet barely touch the ground and my attention gets directed to basic functions such as the way my body moves through the warehouse; I focus on the particular way I'm bending as I swoop down to pick from a lower shelf, or I concentrate on moving gracefully, as I reach up to pick from a higher shelf and then as I carry the books to their designated box (sometimes I need to double check it's the right box, especially when I've taken pills), I do it with a heightened awareness of exactly how they are balanced by my body that supports the load, I pack with a stronger sense of purpose ... pills  transform the mundane into a piece of performance art. Well anyway, that's what is going on in my head, and what goes around in my head is all that really matters.

So, these blog posts work like Tramadol; they are an expression of stuff that whirls around in my head that give me a sense of well being.  Sometimes the words that drift around in my head develop a kind of structure, they begin to organize themselves into a sort of 'narrative image'  like a story in a snapshot and then the words can find release from the whirly pit inside my head, they take on a formation that can be posted out to the world. Out of my head and off into cyberspace. When it's gone there's a sense of ease, well being, (I call it the Tramadol effect).

And that's what these blog posts are about.