'Deeper Perspective' text below.
My mother Fereshteh and I separated from my father Afshin when I was aged six. We had been living in Costa Rica where my father worked as a civil engineer. The displacement caused by the Iranian Revolution had taken it's toll on their relationship and both wanted to be closer to their families. Fereshteh and I moved to Maryland on the east coast of America to live with her younger brother and my grandmother. I attended two elementary schools over the course of two years until in the summer of 1985, my mother decided to resettle us to Mission Viejo, California, where other family members had gathered.
During that summer, Fereshteh and I lived between temporary accommodations and the homes of relatives. Fereshteh was limited to working in the kitchen of a McDonalds due to her lack of skills and poor English. At the end of that summer she asked me if I wanted to visit my father in London. I desperately missed him so of course said yes. Little did I know that I would never return.
For the last three decades and since our parting, Fereshteh has been sending me parcels consisting of dried foods typical of Iran. I receive three or four of these packages a year and all our telephone conversations revolve around these parcels. They are often stuck in customs for weeks which gives her a reason to ring everyday to see of their arrival. What's always funny to me is that these are Iranian foods, produced in California and sent over to London where Iranian food is in abundance.
It is only now as a father that I have realised Fereshteh needs this ritual more than I do. With a son of my own, I cannot comprehend the idea of being away from your child for all those years. What makes me sad for her is that she can never have that time back. Fereshteh still treats me like the child she knew and perhaps it's easier for her that way. Although these parcels became her way of showing a mother's nurture to her son, they inadvertently through repetition kept us fixed in the Summer of 1985.
-Text written in 2016