An Un-shameless Plug... Please Support

http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/sfhalf11/tparang#My-Fundraising-Page

Last night, for the 12th night in a row I was up at 3:00 am, unable to sleep from congestion due to the peskiest sinus infection and cold ever.

I am doing all the right things: hot showers and baths, steam, tea, lemon, honey, Saline drips, and even a round of antibiotics... but it feels like cement has been poured into my sinus cavity, and it has now hardened into a rock.

Sitting propped up on a bunch of pillows and trying to fight the illness induced insomnia, thoughts started pouring into my head....

"I feel so fatigued."

"Why did we have to start the new year this way?"

"And my poor sweet girl too - sick for just as long as I, and all cooped up in the house..."

"Dear god please make us better by tomorrow, at the latest..."

"No Way we'll be better by tomorrow... it would take a miracle for our sinuses to clear up from where we are now... this could take a month..."

And then, instead of going on and on and putting myself to sleep on a sweet lullaby of worried thoughts, I remembered learning earlier that day of a close friend's husband's battle with Brain Cancer. A lovely young man with a sweet young wife and two wonderful boys, filled with dreams for days and years ahead as a family.

My mind instantly went quiet, my sinuses cleared up momentarily, and in the quiet of the night I heard myself breath in deeply.

How silly to worry about a pesky cold. About some sleepless nights. About two or three weeks of sitting by the fireplace sipping tea, listening to Raffi, playing puzzles with a sick and bored toddler.

What millions fighting cancer right now wouldn't give to be just fighting a cold, sipping some tea, totally congested and fatigued....

Which brings me to say this: It is important to support research to fight CANCER. It is the responsibility of each and every one of us to support the cause of finding a cure, as more and more friends, neighbors, colleagues and loved ones come face to face with it.

Mr. Urban is running to raise funds for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Last year, his father, an avid hiker, a fit man with a lifetime of healthy eating and living habits lost a battle against a measly bunch of cells in his throat. Who would have thought it would happen to him?

If you can, PLEASE consider supporting his cause, no matter the amount we are grateful for the support and love: Mr. Urban's donation page.

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

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