A love letter to our town

A love letter to our town - Part III

La Coeur de la Ville

If nothing else, Mr. Urban is a wiz at research (well that, and he is handsome and sweet). He is a believer that there is an answer to everything, and it’s just a matter of time to find the answer no matter how complicated the question.

I on the other hand do not subscribe to that philosophy, and therefore don’t waste much time researching life’s hard problems. However, I am a believer in him, and thus defer all the mind twisters to him. He rarely disappoints.

Exhausted from a disappointing home search, Mr. Urban and I each crawled into our respective comfort zones. I, painting the walls of our rented apartment red, and he, sporting his signature content look, on the computer each night searching for a home for us.

One morning he mentioned that the night before he had found our dream home. A French inspired Villa, no less. Newly Built. Located in the lovely village of Los Altos. A home that we can probably afford, because it has yet to go on the market! I know that his sense of calm comes through even on the Ethernet… who could possibly sleep on such information?

With my sweetheart’s savvy maneuvering, we did end up finding a home. And that is how we began our love affair with a little foothill town called Los Altos….

Downtown Los Altos

Comments

FORTY THREE YEARS, SEVEN MONTHS AND FORTY DAYS

My life and the life of every Iranian I know, is bookended by the Iranian Revolution of 1979. It doesn't matter that I was barely old enough to remember this historic event or that I spent the decades that followed it, far far away from Iran, the Revolution of 1979 is a heavy, tacky, cruel bookend that defines who we used to be, who we are and the recurring nightmares and dreams we’ve had for 43 years. I can pinpoint with certainty the exact month after which a general feeling of displacement settled like sticky dust all over me, my family, my classroom, my teachers, our closest friends, our home, our city… In the years and decades that followed, I never experienced another event that brought such a magnitude of change to the nucleus of life. Not in Iran, and definitely not after a whole life lived outside of Iran. Perhaps only recently, the experience of the Trump years and the Covid-19 pandemic, the significant fear, change and frustration that both events brought to our col

On Donald Trump, Crunchy Bananas and our Children... A "How To" on keeping up Spirits and Sanity

The other morning at breakfast, my four year old looked, yet again somberly, at the breakfast before her. Despite having enthusiastically selected a hodgepodge of liberally salted hard boiled egg whites on the side of toasted hamburger buns, strawberries and vanilla yogurt and a cup of milk, she still could not bring herself to enjoy her breakfast. Her face was wrinkled, as was mine with exasperation from yet another failed attempt at assembling a palatable breakfast for my picky eater. This one, she is quite the philosopher. And before I could ask her why she wasn't eating, she said: "Two Things!" Holding up two tiny fingers. "The smells of these foods I picked, don't go with each other! And I wish Donald Trump would magically become Hillary Clinton, and the word (world) would be GREAT again". Despite our best efforts to protect our children from the anxiety of these times, they are alert and picking up on the mood (and the lingo) in the wor

Safa

I have always loved words. The way some people love shiny new objects. As soon as I heard a new word, a word that captured my imagination, my energy, my hundreds of unnamed inner thoughts and feelings, I would latch on to it with fearceness, joy and curiosity. I have also always been intrigued by how regular old words can be used in an unexpected context and evoke bursts of unexpected feelings in the listener, such as laughter, anticipation or tears. I would search for those words coming out of the mouths of everyone around me, and mentally catalog them like a dutiful librarian, and await the opportunity to say the words with my own mouth out loud to an audience, or better yet use it in an essay where the teacher could grade it, get a kick out of it, or read it to the whole class. As a child I always loved the Persian word Safa . For one thing the word sounds so simple, yet sophisticated and beautiful, and for another, each of my memories of hearing this word is stored in th

An Urban Girl

Search This Blog