Falling Slowly

I don't know you, but I want you

All the more for that

Words fall through me and always fool me

And I can't react

And games that never amount

To more than they're meant

Will play themselves out

Take this sinking boat and point it home

We've still got time,

Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice

You make it known

Falling slowly, eyes that know me

And I can't go back

The moods that take me, and erase me

And I'm painted black

Well, you have suffered enough

And warred with yourself

It's time that you won

Take this sinking boat and point it home

We've still got time,

Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice

You make it known

Falling slowly, sing your melody

I'll sing along

I've paid the cost too late

Now you're gone

-Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, Once Soundtrack

Viva Iran

I have, with bated breath, been witness to the brouhaha (I do love that word) over the Iranian elections in the last few days. With my own knowledge of the situation, which is admittedly limited, there did not seem to be a scenario that would find the reformist Moussavi victorious. I had wished for his victory, but not hoped for it. A reformist former president who supports broader freedoms for women versus a sitting president who possesses infallible Islamist credentials and enjoys massive popular support in rural Iran. It is not a contest one would enjoy betting on, especially with regard to who would enjoy the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's favour.

And then, about a fortnight before the election, the tide began to turn, in increments, just a little bit here, and then a little more there. And suddenly, there it was, that elusive thing, hope. Perhaps there was a chance after all that the next president of Iran would not be a Jew-hating, Israel-bashing, Holocaust-denying fundamentalist. The election day came and went, with nary a story of violence or criminal conduct. The Iranians, it would seem, enjoy a civilized and robust exercise of their franchise. Polls were extended for hours as people came out to vote in numbers that startled the government. And then, inevitably, the results. Which is when circumstances began to more closely resemble a Chaplin comedy than real life in the 21st century.

Here we are now, less than week after the results were announced(more than 65% in favour of Ahmadinejad, in case you're interested). Anger, so much a part of my own personal being, is radiating outwards from Iran; from Tehran, where thousands gather in crushing mobs, to London, Paris and New York, where former Iranian nationals watch spellbound as their once-home is now awash in green. Iran has all but been shut down, no one in or out. But that has not stopped the velvet revolution from fervently and vociferously announcing its intentions. They are protesting out in the streets of Tehran today and through the internet, through Facebook and Twitter, even as they are arrested in hordes and beaten and killed in the dozens. And I, a mere voyeur and participant in their collective anguish, am with them, if only in cyber-spirit.

My heart is broken

all over again. C'est la vie, right?

Death and All His Friends

I have been possessed with questions of death in recent times. Honestly, it is that time of the year, and I am naturally drawn to questions of that nature. This year, I feel different. I am not, as I have been in the past, consumed by my own impending demise, be it sooner or later. Instead, I find I am confronting the death of a relationship. Is it harder still for someone you love to die, or is it harder to lose someone who is still very much alive. My experience of both has not offered me clarity on the subject. They who I have loved and lost are just as missed as him that I love and the relationship that no longer is. Both are unfathomable. The only difference is that I chose for one to happen. So maybe then I am not allowed to mourn? If it was indeed my own doing, then can I claim sorrow over the passing? And when is it that I stop mourning? When do I stop wearing black and looking baleful, when the one I have lost is well and alive somewhere?

As usual, I have more questions than answers. There are days I wish that the earth would simply swallow me whole rather than allowing me to suffer in this manner. On other days however, the visceral nature of existence feels more attractive and immediate, and keeps me from myself. I am wishing for the latter.