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Here
she was. Standing right there, fourteen rows of chairs away from
me. Looking at the crowd, looking beautiful, so emotional. I
could feel it with every fiber of my heart. She delivered her
first song, time had only perfected her voice, warmer than ever.
Every word, set free after so many years, flew toward the
audience.
Tonight Googoosh was singing in Chicago. Her songs took me
back to a place where I had left eighteen years ago and vowed to
never return. Her songs took me back home. I was no longer
an alien, a stateless or an uprooted. I belonged to a land.
Tonight, I was walking down the streets of Tehran. Crushing
autumn leaves under my shoes, listening to dusty sparrows
singing joyfully. Drivers honking restlessly, people pushing
each other and me floating in that careless wave. I was walking
out of a movie theatre, the smell of cigarette smoking and
sunflower seeds and that Friday afternoon sun blinding my eyes.
I was buying fresh walnuts and listening to the whispering water
running next to the side-walk, taking with it all our sorrows,
all our pain .
Tonight, I wasn't looking down anymore. I was looking up, I
could see my
steps in that innocent snow on the mountains, I could feel that
river of
freedom running under my skin, dripping into my veins, getting
into my face, throbbing all over my head. Tonight, Googoosh and
her songs were touching my wounded soul, abandoned for so many
years, never mended. I was standing high, there in the middle of
the border, at the tip of the mountain.
Tonight, I was looking back again, my last look back at that
"Captive Land". I was not angry anymore. Tonight, I
broke my vow and I felt fine. After so many years of quietude,
Googoosh's come-back reminded me that through all the thick and
thin, you can survive, you can heal and you can move on. Her
message is clear: That life can get better, that we can get
better. That we can live with our past. That there are good days
ahead of us.
Googoosh is us. She is the best of us. She brings out the best
in all of us.
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