Margot Eyring
Transforming
Inspiration piece

Irene Plax
Response

Rich is at the eighth hole when his cell phone rings. He procures it from the pocket of his khakis.

Tee off was at nine, same time as her appointment. “I’ll call you as soon as I find out”, she had said, and he didn’t feel so bad about not being there. Besides, he liked to golf with Carter, a stoic older guy, even though it meant losing. Carter exemplified sportsmanship characteristic of an older generation, and rarely reacted to a bad shot.

Rich answers his phone. “Hi,” he says.

Rich nods. “Great,” he says. “Great. I will be home by noon. You too.”

He puts his phone away and taps the ground with his 3-iron.

“It’s a girl,” he tells Carter.

“Congratulations, Sir,” Carter replies.

Rich nods again. He marvels at this situation he’s created. He feels slightly panicked as he becomes aware of the empty space between him and everything else. The grass aroma is really strong. He has no choice but to experience it.

“I’m scared, Carter.”

Carter nods. “That’s par for the course.”

Both men gaze at the green ahead of them. They are standing at the base of a small hill from where the freshly cut grass appears to sprawl forever.

“Ready for the next hole?” asks Carter.

Rich nods. As the two men advance, their nostrils carry the smell of life.

Margot Eyring
Dust Cloud
Response

The Hum
By Irene Plax
Inspiration Piece

The drill howls and grinds on the street. It wakes Marley. She rolls over, but her husband has slept next to her and seeing him exacerbates the annoying noise. It is a recession; there is no money to buy fancy nail polish or organic vegetables, let alone divorce lawyers or second apartments, and they are stuck together.

The only thing in the refrigerator is a carton of eggs. Marley is at the kitchen stove, alone, because even if her husband is awake they avoid being in the same room at the same time. She cracks an egg directly into the hot pan and only the yolk drops out. The egg white stays cooped up inside the shell. On the next egg, the same thing happens, and the slippery yolk glistens at her like an eye. She ignores the oddity and scrambles, then sits down to eat a protein-rich breakfast.

From her perch looking out the window, she sees couples on the sidewalk.  They progress across her vista joined yet apart like petulant siblings. She knows they’re sick of each other, but would be inconvenienced by separating, and she is struck that she is just like everyone else. She isn’t special. Everybody is evenly submerged in boring problems, leveled like spackle on a wall into a comfortable sort of misery. The men in hard hats split concrete and the drills sound like monsters. She watches the street crack into segments. Dust clouds rise from the transformation. She lifts her fork to her mouth and tastes DNA.

Michelle Wallace
Hold Onto Hope
Response Piece

The Italian Brownies
By Jewel Beth Davis
Inspiration Piece

Providence 1974

It is autumn and camp is over. I am back in Providence preparing to return to my full-time work with a theatre company where I have no friends and no supporters. I am depressed and have been isolating myself. Patti and Jen, two Camp Wingate counselors who attend Brown University, invite me to a party. With my dog, Jeefer, settled on my bed, I venture out on the night of the party with some trepidation towards the Brown dormitories. It is chilly so I move quickly, shivering a little, though I feel like dragging my feet.

The brick dormitory building looms before me in the black night.  No ivy here, the building cannot be more than five to ten years old. Looking up at it, I shiver unabated. I open the heavy metal door and climb two short flights to the second floor. I follow the sounds of hubbub to the end of the hall where people are pouring into and out of a door, the suite where Jenn and Patti live.

Something catches in my throat. I turn away from the door and face the empty hallway. I decide to leave. No one notices me, but I feel like a red neon sign that blinks the message, “Not right. Not right.” Or perhaps, as the Pod People said pointing at the humans in the Sci Fi movie, “Not one of us.”  I stop and hover. Other than Jeefer, I have nothing waiting for me at home but loneliness.

I pass under the lintel of the door and am engulfed in a dark, smoke- filled room with dark blobs that must be people. The room reeks of Patchouli oil. Music plays. “One pill makes you larger. And one pill makes you small…and the pill that mother gives you…” There are small islands of dull light from the lava lamps around the room. My stomach reacts to the greasy consistency of the lava lamps. Black light posters cast eerie images from the walls.  Frantically, I gaze around the room, searching for something familiar I can attach to. Oh, God, why did I come?

I spot Jen and Patti in the left hand corner of the room. They are part of the circle of blobs lounging on the floor. There is an acrid smell that hangs in a cloud in the air above them. My stomach revolts.  I only know for certain they are passing around a joint because I see the small red point in the darkness that expands and contracts in a regular pattern. That, and the cloying smell. Around the room, other blobs are raising green and brown bottles to what I imagine are their mouths. I sense where the bodies are so I don’t trip on anyone. I have trouble navigating parties that are well lit. There is no way I can connect to people in the pitch black. Since I don’t drink or smoke dope, I know my chances of enjoying myself are low.

Jen and Patti drag themselves up from the circle on the floor to greet me. They smile a lazy stoned-slow welcome as they weave slightly. They both laugh deep throaty laughs though no one has spoken yet.

“Oh, wow, man, Jewel. You came.”

“Yeah, that is like…so cool. You want to get stoned? It’s good stuff.”

“Yeah, definitely, come on, man. Everyone is cool about sharing.”

A song begins to play in my head, uninvited. “Don’t Bogart that joint, my friend. Pass it over to me-e-e.”

“Ah, no thanks,” I say. “Not in the mood tonight.”

Or ever. I’ve been depressed to a greater or lesser extent for years. . It would be a bad idea for me to add drugs into the mix. I am afraid that they would remove the thin firewall in my mind and I’d hurl headlong into the abyss of insanity. “But thanks for the offer. This party is out of sight.  I think I’ll just wander around and check out the scene.” God, I never speak that way.

“Far out.” Jen and Patti wander back to their circle to roll another joint. The only option left for me is to find the food table. I feel my way around in the dark until I find a table with bowls and mounds of things. On the buffet are chips, potato and tortilla, two large bowls of the ubiquitous Onion Dip and plate of cut up veggies, and two large pyramid mounds of brownies; all the usual college party fare. There’s a guy of about twenty by the buffet, relentlessly attacking the food. He is tall with lank, blond hair to his shoulders. All the men these days have lank, unshaped shoulder length hair.

“Whoa,” he says to me.

“Whoa,” I answer.

“No, I mean, really, WHOA,” he says. “Have you tried the brownies?”

“Uh, no, not yet. I just arrived and I’ve been sampling the carrots in the onion dip. It’s pretty good.”

“No, man, the brownies. You got to taste the brownies. The rest is a waste. The brownies are truly amazing.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say the veggies are actually a waste but I love chocolate too. I’ll eat anything that’s chocolate. Except chocolate covered ants…”

He hands me a brownie. “Try this,” he says.

I taste it. “You’re right. They’re really chocolaty. But you know,” I say, “They have a strange taste. Kind of Italian. Like they have oregano in them.”

“I don’t know about Italian, man,” the blonde says. “More like, outta’ this world.”

He starts to giggle so I do too. I begin shoveling brownies into my mouth. I think I’m beginning to get used to the Italian flavor or something because they are really growing on me. I must have eaten five brownies by now.

The blonde guy says, “I’ve reached my limit,” and wanders off to join another group. Other than the momentary greeting from the two girls, he’s been my only conversational success at this party. All students at Brown, everyone is three or four years younger. What can I say to them?

Suddenly, with no harbinger, the room shifts into another reality. The walls stretch; they expand and contract, seemingly in time to the music. “Come on, baby, light my fire. Come on, baby, light my fire. Try to set the night on fire.”

My face feels like it’s on fire, flashes of heat radiating on its surface. My balance is off and I can’t seem to find a level surface on which to walk. Sounds vibrate off the stretching walls. People’s faces look huge and leering or teeny tiny. My legs and arms shake and wobble. My heart is racing off the charts. I have no idea what is happening to me. Then suddenly, I realize what it is. I am finally going crazy. I knew it was only a matter of time.  Shit! I was so certain I could hold it at bay with therapy.

The only thing my mind shouts to me is, ”GET OUT OF HERE! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE, NOW!”

I run. I don’t ask anyone for help. I don’t want all these strangers here to know I’m crazy. I feel so brittle that I could crack into small pieces. I run blindly. Out of the room, out of the dorm, out into the street. Maybe the fresh crisp air will help me snap out of this nightmare. Now it’s the stars on a black sky that are expanding and contracting. Now, it’s the sidewalk that is uneven and shaped like a rollercoaster. My insanity has propelled me into an animated Beatle’s movie that doesn’t end happily.

Aftermath

Three weeks later, I am walking Jeef in my neighborhood and I cross the street, near the dark brown, shingled house with the pointy eaves that is creepy at night. I am near the Portuguese bakery and even the aroma of the delicious loaves doesn’t comfort me as it used to. I do not fit into my skin anymore and I don’t know how to get back in. Each day, each hour is torture. Anxiety crawls through me like a thousand ants under the skin.

Coming towards me, I see two familiar faces and realize it’s Jenn and Patti. I wish there is a way to avoid them but they recognize me, and approach with smiles. I am embarrassed about the night I saw them. Although they cannot possibly know what happened that night, I believe that they and everyone else can see right through me.

It is a bright, crackling day and they look fresh and young, happy just to be alive. Standing with them, I feel old and defeated.  I am twenty-four years old.

They pour affection onto Jeefer, which he laps up greedily. He is a favorite with everyone and is vain about it.  As they rub his silky ears and kiss his muzzle, the girls bubble over with insouciant conversation about the party. I feel brittle, as though my jaw will break if I say much. Then, suddenly, I focus in on Jenn’s words.

“Whoa,” she says. “Did you have any of those hash brownies that night?  They were dangerous.  Everyone at the party was hallucinating and paranoid all night.”

“Yeah,” says Patti, “those things were lethal. They must have been laced with something really strong, like THC. You probably didn’t have any because, believe me, you would know if you had.”

I stand there dully. “Hash brownies…” I say. “Hash brownies.”

“It was wild,” Jenn continues, her shining face decorated by a hank of glittering hair falling into her eyes. She and Patti are laughing. As if it’s all just a good joke. To them, it is. “We were all up all night freaking out. Thank God we were all together. Hey, where’d you disappear to? I don’t remember your leaving.”

“Oh…home…” I say. I don’t tell them what happened. I am ashamed of my melodramatic reaction to the hash. I pray that no one finds out.  So I pretend that everything is fine.  That nothing happened. At some point, I make goodbye sounds and we move off in different directions with smiles. Only mine is another pretense. I continue to pretend I’m fine until I cannot pretend anymore. Until it is too late.

You would think that I felt better knowing.  I wasn’t crazy that night; I was stoned. But I didn’t feel vindicated. Or angry with two silly girls who assumed that everyone knows that brownies at a college party contain hashish. I felt guilty. Guilty and powerless to control any aspect of my life, even what I put into my mouth.

——————————————————

Note: All of the art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without express and written permission from the author or artist is strictly prohibited.

Gwynne Mason
Anica
Response

October
By Marla Deschenes
Inspiration piece

October closes its sweatered arms around me

The crunch of falling leaves greet both my feet

And my constant companion’s

Though his feet double mine.

I can’t imagine a world where

You spend your life looking at the backs of people’s knees

Although sometimes I feel as though

My life really is like that anyway

If I think about it long enough.

It was always about October

And stolen cigarettes

And

You.

I spend my days marveling at how I got here

When I spent so much time trying to deny that

I wanted nothing more

Than this – all of it.

From the fenced in yard to the home that I know by its creaks and sighs

In the nights spent closed in your arms

In our home

My life really is like that anyway

If I think about it long enough.

It is never about me

More the constant nights

Smoking behind the shed

And

You.

I am most creative during this time

When everything around me is readying for sleep.

I watch the leaves save their final goodbyes

And leave their muddied shadows on the pavement.

I am aging in this skin

A scary prospect with the vision

Of being old and tattooed

And forgotten.

No one wants to die alone

Like October.

Always on that path

The fastest way

Connecting the highways lines back

To

You.

by Paula Lantz

(Piece is acrylic, comprised of two canvasses, for a total of 28 x 44)

.

.

Baby Dishes

by Rebecca Harris

.

pin prick of winter rain

rounds the corners of each windowpane

.

gone each workday morning

he surprises her and returns every evening

.

and she will clean them now and again

bottles and spoons palmed tenderly, one by one

she finds them there in the bottom cabinet

making no nonsense of her baby wishes

.

every color, every embellishment

a rainbow swept out and away

the tiny dish with the soft suction

the big tray for all those fingered joys

the slotted valve on the tippy cup

all customized for a pint-sized person

a generation that would not be

.

she thinks no one knows of her tender afternoons

her affected affirmations

.

but the riot of plastic and melamine stands out

and the sleet saw it all

untitled

(For F.S Moskowitz)

she doesn’t tell us

“slow-ly”

no adverb wielding Philistine she

prose enunciated with practiced languid ease

she describes heartache down to the follicle

Some slow pull of vodka over ice

And the verb is ever the thing

.

hers is a monarch’s glorious palette

and her aim is as true as her chestnut gaze

all conversation begins there iris smooth

we are alive in her stare

.

she hears my story of the wrinkled dress

“Well, that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

her hyperbole is dead on, but she smiles to make it okay

giving comfort to the goyische girl

and she knows a hymn or two

Jesus loves me this I know…

for the Bible tells me so

.

flattened palms cool on the table

she bows to the power of words

it’s how we’ve anticipating the celebrated face

mapping devotion with candy recipe precision

her four-score is just hopscotch

this is why we came

.

and so goes the poet biographer’s folly

pulling together strands of liquid smoke

beggaring the weave

.

hers is the endlessly taught lesson

the bylines may use some phrases for the phenomena

but no slant of syllables could represent her

she is the joyfully whispered confession

tiny shoes impossible to fill

Spring (1868-1873)

J.-F. Millet

A grassy track recedes between small plots with apple trees

tipping their blossom over rows of cabbages or fallow turf:

perspective of dream toward a far fence where a man leans

lost in thought that surrounds him like the low-angled light

and the shade and wet scent of the enormous oak he’s under

His reverie’s horizon is a doubled prismatic phantom arch

framing a birch-tree palace on the high green ridge beyond

to one side the thatch and whitewashed walls of childhood

to the other a few cloud shreds hurried across evening blue

Adam Cornford

The Woodchuck’s Sleep Coming On
By Robert Haydon Jones
Response

You probably know my younger brother. For nearly forty years, he was a famous television newsman. I guess “world famous” would be more accurate. Even though he appeared only on U.S. Networks, whenever I was with him, practically any place in the world, people would come up and start talking to him like they knew him.

Even though he retired about five years back, people still treat him like a celebrity. That’s great for him – and he does revel in it – but some times we family members forget my brother expects Special Handling from us too. After all, he is just our brother — and our numbers include a well-known actress, a five-novel author, and the executive producer of the top rated TV news program in the nation. The rest of us have regular jobs but we all think we are mighty special.

Well, the brother’s milestone birthday was looming just two weeks ahead, when I e-mailed my side of the family to see about giving a party. That very day, Anne, my wife, Louise, a daughter in law who lives nearby, my three sisters and my houseman, Edmund, hammered out the guest list, the flowers motif and the menu.

For the nonce, my role was Designated Importuner.

My brother loathed the approach of this milestone as if it were the Grim Reaper, himself. He had reluctantly agreed to a dinner in the city on his actual birthday with some of his children and a selected few of his Manhattan friends at one of the last of the great High French restaurants in the city. But he had let it be known he didn’t want a party with us out in the country.

Well, I began by importuning the brother’s wife, Helen, and she, in her genteel, southern, way, said she sure appreciated the thought but it was up to himself; and, she added, he was very unhappy about this birthday.

To be honest, I felt some relief at the prospect he would refuse. The brother and Yours Truly are civil but not close. You might say we live under an armed truce ratified decades ago.

What’s more, our family gatherings have unfailingly been wrought with tension, distance, and often, outright shouting conflict, for as long as I can remember. And I am a reliable source for such history. I am the oldest family member still on the planet. My big milestone birthday zipped by three years ago.

Nevertheless, I bore down; I called my brother’s cell and importuned him on tape; then I e-mailed him a plea for the pleasure of his company out here just a few miles from his palatial summer and weekend home. The next day Helen called Anne and said my brother had agreed to come. She said she was happily surprised.

So, suddenly the party was on. I began to think about what to say about my brother at the party and when I should say it. As the ranking Family Old Guy, it was up to me to say the words. I do words for a living but this was a daunting assignment. After six decades of civil distance, I hardly knew him. I didn’t know what to say.

The day before the party, I was still blank. Then Greg Lippert emailed me his inspiration piece for this round of Spark. The moment I saw it, I flashed back to the time– when we were maybe six and four – when my brother and I escaped from a inattentive nanny and helped ourselves to the remnants of the cocktails my Parents and some of their friends had left when they went out to dinner.

We got drunk! (Of course, we didn’t know what it was.) Looking back (for the first time in 65 years) I realize now that it was my first psychedelic experience. We giggled incessantly and then we must have passed out.

The next day, my father hit us once on the bare butt with a hairbrush. It was the first time he had struck us. He was angry. We were crying and frightened before he did it; Afterward, we were shocked he had hurt us. We never saw the nanny again.

Well, that sudden, unexpected, flashback surprised me with its clarity. It was if a door had suddenly opened inside me. I could see and feel so much detail. The harsh burning, taste of the remnant drinks – the sweetness of the cherries and the slices of orange. Then things got blurry and dizzy – we started up giggling and we couldn’t stop.

I also had vivid recall of my brother trembling with fear the next day as my father prepared to punish us. I could see my father’s face contorted with rage. I could see it all – just a few seconds with one photo had brought it all back. Yet, there was something else under the flashback that I couldn’t see – but I could feel it – and it felt mighty powerful.

The feeling of “almost but not quite” stayed with me as the day wore on. At bedtime, I realized my brother’s party was the next day and I still had no words. Just as I was on the verge of drifting off to sleep, I replayed the flashback of my brother and me finishing up my parent’s cocktails.

As I drifted down through the flashback, a mighty feeling surged up through me. Buried deep down in my recall, like a mound over a fallen city on a bare landscape, was a trove of long-forgotten feeling.

As it surged through me, that flash was like a microdot chock full of detail placed innocuously in a random message. It was no wonder I had missed it all these years!

My brother was my first friend. My brother was my first best friend. We had scuttled across many a floor together. We had conspired against nannies and babysitters. We had been a twosome – my brother and me. Until the next brother came, that’s how we were known and that’s how we knew ourselves: as a twosome!

We went shopping with our mother as a twosome. Our outfits matched. We played as a twosome – most often our playground was our apartment or our playpen.

We were left to our own devices and that was just fine. We were rewarded in tandem and punished as a duo. We talked with each other well before both of us could talk.

Some microdot! We were masters of cajoling extra helpings of pie from the Central Casting, kindly old genius pie-maker tasked with watching us many a long day while our Parents traveled.

We suffered horrific abuse together – the nature of which I will keep secret. We did not know it was abuse. It is practically certain our abuser also didn’t know.

We went through repeated sickness together. Bad sickness. We were bed to bed in the hospital wards. (There was a War on.) We had Panda Bears we loved more than our blankies. Once a mean nurse took them from us, declared them filthy and threw them in a trash can. I can still see the face of the young Doctor passing by who heard our frantic pleas and retrieved our Pandas for us. God bless you Sir in Heaven!

Our enemy was William Ferguson, the bullet-headed son of our apartment building’s Superintendent, five years our senior. He threatened to punch us; he threatened to tell his father we had pissed in the hallway.

We made endless plans for the downfall of William Ferguson. At some point, we decided that “Let’s make plans against William Ferguson.” would be the shibboleth we would use to mark a message genuine. My brother was going to use it when terrorists in Argentina abducted him forty years back – but they let him go.

So there it was in a flash – a vast river of feeling – well beyond the range of any words that I can summon.

My old friend. My first best friend. My tandem partner. My me and him.

Buried there on the plain. A mound. Forgotten but not gone! Hibernating!

Why the civil distance? Another feeling was coming up the chute. Why had we lost each other?

I flinched back away in time.

The birthday party was a great success. Even my brother enjoyed it. After the cake and presents, I told everyone that I had recently realized that my brother was my first friend. And that buried in me was a mighty love for him that was good to feel.

My brother did not seem surprised. He thanked me and told everyone about William Ferguson and our shibboleth pact. Then one of my sisters asked him to discuss the most exciting moments of his career – and we were off to the races.

This all happened just three weeks ago. Well, it is as if the power of my memory has been supercharged. You might want to see for yourself — the next time you are drifting down – if there are any mounds – and if they yield rich microdots.

But, honestly, I am proceeding with caution. Now that I know, when I am on the edge of sleep, I let myself drift down and I can see the mounds but I go no further.

Mason View response by: Delores Jerry Eckberg

Let me in SPARK10

Response words: Dale Leffler

Let me in

I’m sorry I didn’t answer the door

I’m sorry I didn’t let your in

my heart was raw and sore

from past exposure to the din

The first of autumns chills

came late in October this year

sweeping down from the hills

and you were nowhere near

I hid from the world and myself

from feeling anything like tough

you stood there with open arms

until the sun came up

until my heart melted

until it was just enough

for me

to let

me in

11/1/10

Note:  All art, writing, and music on this site belongs to the person who created it. Copying or republishing anything you see here without expressed and written permission is strictly prohibited.

Nowruz

Val Bonney

Response

PERSIAN NEW YEAR
by
Lisa Leibow

Inspiration piece
Spring was coming the next morning at seven o’clock. Sanaz felt so ready for it. More than ever, she was anxious for everything to bloom, and for the newness. Her children were grown and on their own. She was free now.

In her family they celebrated big. It was their New Year, the Persian New Year. It was the beginning. Sanaz had turned 62 last month. And in 62 years she never failed to celebrate the New Year.

Sanaz observed this holiday even as a new immigrant to America. That wasn’t easy, because there were so few around with whom to share the festivity. When she first moved to the United States, there were no other Iranians.

Think about Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, or even the Western New Year—January 1. What if you went somewhere and nobody knew about it? What if nobody ever even heard about it? Not even any mention of it. It was a celebration. It meant fun. So, what was she to do? Nobody even talked about it. Even though she had no one to share it with, as was customary, each year she cleaned the house. She aired the house by opening windows and doors. She washed and bought new clothes. For the year to start, one must have been well-fed, obtained brand-new clothes, been happy, and had everything very clean. That was the way to have a proper New Year celebration.

Once in America for a while, Sanaz learned that Americans, too, adhered to the custom of spring cleaning. She observed that Christians had Easter, which incorporated a rejoicing of springtime, and that Jews had Passover, which was a holiday of springtime too. She thought the customs likely came from the same origins; every religion had these traditions. People long ago all had this way of life. And then when religions developed, they adapted the traditions as their own.

But the coming of spring had been a tradition of Iranian people for 3000 or 4000 years. Even after Islam came, the leaders of that religion tried to change the traditions and make them totally Islamic. However, Islamic leaders could never stop the people from continuing these ancient rituals.

Even in the absence of any community to share, Sanaz rejoiced each spring equinox for her children. She wanted to make sure they remembered who they were.

She prepared special food for the New Year. She set a ceremonial table called the cloth of seven dishes, all beginning with the Persian letter cihn, which makes the same sound as the letter s. On the table, she set these symbolic dishes: Sabzeh, or sprouts, usually wheat or lentil, which represented rebirth; Samanu, a pudding in which common wheat sprouts were transformed and given new life as a sweet, creamy pudding; Seeb means apple and represented health and beauty; Senjed, the sweet, dry fruit of the Lotus tree, represented love; Seer, which is garlic in Persian, represented medicine; Somaq, or sumac berries, represented the color of sunrise, with the appearance of the sun Good conquers Evil; and Serkeh, or vinegar, represented age and patience.
 

Sanaz’s favorite part of the preparations was to put seeds in water to make them sprout. Once sprouted, she took them out and put them on the plate with the other food. She usually liked to sprout lentils instead of some other bean, because lentils grew curly. The curly sprouts looked festive when she topped wheat pudding with them. The whole celebration was a combination or mixture of celebration of spring and the New Year.

To her it made sense to celebrate the New Year with the coming of spring. It was the time when nature was regenerating after winter’s hibernation and dormancy. To her it was supposed to be New Year.

Sanaz did all these things with her children, to make them know their history:  she kept them out of school for that first day of spring, planted seeds with them, took them shopping and bought new clothes for them, and showed them the seven “s” things. Every year the holiday was at a different time. Sometimes it was at five o’clock in the morning. Sometimes it was at five in the afternoon. Sanaz would wake the children at the start of the New Year, even at two in the morning—“Happy New Year, darlings! Come on, it’s the New Year!”—then, she was the only one to get the word of the New Year in the air. There was nothing in the air from anyone else in the community.

Her husband often got angry and said, “Sanaz, why are you doing all of this? We live here now. You should either celebrate Christmas or our New Year, not both!” He would make such a big deal.

Sometimes she told him, “If you make a big deal, I will celebrate Chinese New Year, Indian New Year, African New Year, our New Year, Western New Year!”

They had so many arguments about it.

But this year was the first year in her whole life that Sanaz did nothing. She did not put her seed in water. She did not prepare the cloth of seven dishes. Now, it was too late.

Years ago the only way she knew that the New Year was done was to look at the time. These days, in America, there were Iranian television stations and big communities of Iranian Americans who were celebrating this, so it was really in the air: the beauty shop in Sanaz’s neighborhood was very busy. All the women came and got manicures, pedicures, facials, and waxing all over. They bought new clothes. They got ready for the New Year. So you see, she didn’t know why she was not ready.

Every morning she’d say, “I need to put the seed in water.” Then she didn’t do it.

Sanaz didn’t know why she failed to do it. It was a symbol of renewal to make her strong. Maybe there was no New Year for her this time. Maybe she should’ve bought a new dress to get out her feeling. People said, “Just buy the seeds already sprouted.” Sanaz couldn’t do that. That was not the reason for it—not just to have the small plants. One must actually put the seed in the water.

Her children were grown and on their own. She was proud of her years of single-handedly holding on to these traditions. She came to a new world and passed the torch to a new generation. She was free—free of stories, of bondage, of struggling to make it happen. She grasped that, all along, the newness had been in her every breath, in her realization of every moment. No country, no religion, and no tradition made her who she was or found her what she sought. She didn’t need to put the seeds in water to symbolize strong roots. Sanaz found the seed of her essence so strongly rooted in her heart that there was no need for the ritual. She didn’t need to put any seed in water; her whole life was a celebration of newness and magic.
 

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