I would venture to say that a child's personal life starts with their first memories. How they remember them, and how those memories make them feel, determines the outcome of the rest of their lives. That can differ from person to person, since remembering, aptitude for memory, and brain capacity, can vary with each human. What's even more intriguing, is how we remember those old recollections. How we treat them, and what we do with them, becomes the personality encompassing ourselves. They are almost like a glossary of photos you keep in the back of your mind, and when you see, hear, touch, feel, or smell something, whether familiar or not, they start flickering as if left in the middle of two crosswinds competing for attention, and with each dancing illustrative sheet you are brought closer to a collection of reflections you had once misplaced.
One of my first memories, I clearly remember, or have a glossary for, in which those particular photographs are stored, started with walking to a phone booth. It was not a bad day, per say, the weather was nice, and, the sun was shining. The wind was blowing ever so lightly, making the leaves of surrounding trees whisper as if they were conversing with the blue skies above. I remember holding my mother’s hand. Her younger sister, or rather, my youngest aunt was following us, following along, and, during this entire sequence of memory, I do not remember ever hearing or seeing her speak a single word.
My older aunt, the middle sister, had not been with us for some time now, not dead, god forbid, just not with us. I remember standing outside of the phone booth, while my mother was on the inside of it, on the phone, and being angry. But not the sort of anger you see in vengefulness, but the sort only a child sees; an anger representing a loss. Something that is no longer there. A reality that no longer exists. A fact that has vanished. I remember I was looking up at her, and recognizing, even though she was not looking at me, she was still keeping an eye on me.
Sort of a weird feeling for a child. Being watched without being seen. Sensing a force, you cannot trace or sketch. The only reason, I am assuming, the existence of a higher power is extremely difficult for some adults to accept, let alone comprehend. The concept of something higher and infinitely greater than you. Something you are unable to explain. An omnipotence you cannot outrun. The true comprehension and grasping that which is greater than you, then succumbing to it without hesitation.
I guess what I am trying to say is, being a child, not sure if that ever changes when we are adults, is like being on a game-show, or in a maze, where you have to guess your way around. You keep turning blind corners. You keep returning to the same dead ends; continuously repeating the same mistakes. You keep tripping over your own words, as you keep promising yourself the impossible. You keep stumbling over your own actions, as you continuously try to mount the unobtainable. You keep trying again and again. Your actions decide whether you get scolded or praised; as a child by those raising you, and as an adult by the society you let define you. The trouble is, you don't know which way the referees will tilt, until you have committed yourself to the action, or rather the route chosen. This could range anywhere from not pooping in your pants, running into oncoming traffic, selling drugs, murdering people, exchanging stocks, or overthrowing your government. And therein lies the sadness; most of us only try to better the image seen in the eyes of those whom absolutely despise us, and want nothing else for us but total failure. Those of us who truly succeed in life, and this is only my contention, are those who never give up or in, no matter how many times their face meets the concrete below. They keep getting back up and retrying to get closer to that which they dream, beyond a reasonable doubt, with loving blind eyes.
I remember my mother opening the sliding door to the phone booth, which in itself, even thinking about it at this moment, sounds a bit silly. But yes, there used to be phone booths with sliding doors, and they used to exist by the millions. People used them often; people of all sorts. From your local drug dealers to your international politicians. Hence, the sliding doors; privacy. Probably why I couldn't tell my mother was on the phone with my biological father, until she opened the door and told me it was my father. I've never liked the idea of him being my father, I've never liked him referred to as my father, and I've never considered myself to be his son.
My mother picked me up and set me on the ledge inside of the phone booth, and gave me the wired receiver. I don't remember a word of what he said, or what I said for that matter, besides hello and how are you, because my attention was completely focused on my mother. I guess she must have sensed my aggression as well, because tears were welling up in my eyes, like a secluded desert seeing continuous showers, running through the dry sand formulating into a gushy oasis. I could see the pain in her eyes, and the agony of desperation painted all over her face by the broad-brush strokes of fate. I could sense the uneasiness in the breath. She also had tears in her eyes, which to this day is not an easy image for me to process. I don't remember what he must have said for me to get as upset as did, but I do remember getting aggravated. My mother snatched the receiver out of my hand. Immediately thereafter, she hung up the phone, grabbed me, and we started walking back home.
We lived in Tehran, Iran, at the time. I was about two and half years old. Our neighborhood streets were long, wide, and gray. They seemed endless. They seemed prepped and always clean. The sort of place where dreams are born. The kind of place where dreams grow wings and take flight, but also, the type of place where dreams return to wither and die. There were apartment building covering each inch of the streets on both sides. All sorts of buildings, most of which, had white marble covering the facade of the first floor. That's how I remember them. I don't know why I remember them as being gray. It's not like the streets were capable of emotion. Maybe the asphalt was just a lighter color than any other I've seen since then. I just remember them being gray. Especially the street we lived on in Yousef-Abbad. Really gray. The streets always smelled of the seasons. During the spring, it always smelled of the new year, and what people cooked during Persian New Year. Grilled and fried fish. The smell of sired vegetables. During the summer, of anything green, like the leaves up above, or the summery smell of a picnic. The smell of grilled food. The streets also had wide but shallow channels on each side, that would collect anything from the rain to the garbage people seldom threw in them. Between the sidewalks and the channels, on adjacent sides of the street, where trees. Tall trees. Green leaved trees. We as a family all lived in a four-bedroom apartment.
When we got home after being on the phone with my biological father, I remember being in the bathroom, sitting on the ledge of the sink talking to my mother. Well, she was doing the talking and I was just staring into the abyssal absence of all sensation. She was asking me and wondering what he had said to me. I remember being frozen. I never said a word. I didn't know what to say. I remember looking back and watching myself in the mirror. The mirror reflecting back what I felt on the inside, which is one of the oddest parts of this memory. The sad reflection of self. That's one of the first images I have of myself.