Quo Vadis?

Zurich, an alpine city with fantastic sceneries, classy transportations, strangest German dialect, and fantastic chocolates and cheese!

I was going back to my dorm a few nights ago, it was exactly midnight and for the first time since I had arrived in Zurich, I looked up at the night's sky. The W, or Cassiopeia, was right above my head. I remembered the first time I looked at Stockholm's night sky, and how shocked I was for noticing that most everything was not at the place it always used to be; there Ursa Minor was almost above my head and I could see constellations that were not supposed to be seen in the sky at the same time (not supposed to be seen at my hometown's night sky that is).

When you move around, many things change in your environment, the look and feel of the place, the buildings, the signs, the plants, the way people dress and most obvious of all, the language. But for me, none of all those has ever had an effect as powerful as noticing the changes in the sky. It is like the final verdict, that proves that I have moved, and I am in a new place now!

It is just the contrary of a saying we have in Persian, "Where ever you go, the color of sky would be the same!". It is definitely not so, in the outside at least. But perhaps in the inside, skies stay the same. My internal sky has stayed the same for a long time now, it is gray, with a touch of pink!

= = =

Vienna, good old Vienna. It was a weird feeling, walking by the consuming silence of Donna (Danube) again, remembering the meditating nights I had, gazing at the dancing lights of the bridges over the calm flow of the water. The water looked so calm, but it surely carried the huge burden of what it had seen on its way since it had left the springs, the falls it had passed, the floods it had caused..., but it still had a long way to go; and so did I, and so did I.

= = =

Tehran, the hot city of dry eyes and lost cries.... The capital of my country, whose state and affairs hurt me, just like most other things I love do.

The stay in Tehran this time was just a simple one day transit stay, perhaps not that simple though. Our flight from Mashhad to Tehran was scheduled to be at 7:45pm, and we got home in Tehran at 5am next day. Mashhad's airport was just like a war zone that night, I have traveled quite a lot with plane, but I had never experienced such a havoc. The result of it for me was three broken nails (finger and thumb) and a twisted wrist!

= = =

Mashhad, home. It is already three weeks since I left it again, but it looks like a year. I don't know how on earth I survived the last days, I just have a vague recollection of trying to stay sane, keep my face straight, and handle what I had to handle. And also of reciting these verses from a poem by Saadi (here is the song):

ای ساربان آهسته رو کآرام جانم می​رود
وان دل که با خود داشتم با دلستانم می​رود

من مانده​ام مهجور از او بیچاره و رنجور از او
گویی که نیشی دور از او در استخوانم می​رود
...
او می​رود دامن کشان من زهر تنهایی چشان
دیگر مپرس از من نشان کز دل نشانم می​رود
...
در رفتن جان از بدن گویند هر نوعی سخن
من خود به چشم خویشتن دیدم که جانم می​رود