By Marzieh Alizadeh & Translated by Asadullah Jafari “Pezhman”
A safe place for me was a place where my heart was. Sometimes this date was found in the seat of the bus on the ways and the dry roads of Qom-Kashan, and sometimes behind the old wooden desk that my mother had painted to make it look newer. Until now, I have not understood where my heart finds peace and security, and I am only sure that a part of this puzzle has always been missing for me, that the safe place of my heart does not stay in one site and finds a new place every day.
Sometimes I have been proud that my heart was safe, and I felt safe; times and times when maybe other girls didn’t feel safe; In the middle of the Taybad plains in a taxi with a red-eyed driver or on the quiet streets of Qom city in the afternoon. Most of the time, I have been struggling with myself. Why! In the quietest and most settled hours of the day, restlessness and a sense of insecurity crawled through the window hole of the six-meter room of my father’s house and sat in my heart. Or even now that I can enjoy the beautiful sky and pristine nature in the most remote part of the world, in a city with less than 20,000 people. (Taybad is the border point between Iran and Afghanistan).
I want to put my heart away from the crowded streets of Qom city and the complicated noise pollution of alleys. Restlessness sometimes rains from the sky and sometimes comes from the ground. I read again: “A safe place should be a place where one’s heart can rest.” It’s revolting. It is just as ridiculous as I’m going to say to someone about to commit suicide: “My dear, from tomorrow, try to love yourself more and more.” Absurd and empty! For those of us whose umbilical cords have not yet been cut from war and conflict, talking about the security of the mind and heart is a bluff, and it is stupid. Maybe this is the main piece of the puzzle.
The safety of life and body! Our lives and the lives of our loved ones and to know that we will survive. And we will all survive together. The security of the mind and the peace of the heart depend on the security of life. On the day when Leila and her family were planning to leave Kabul, there was an explosion at Kabul Airport of Afghanistan on the last days of emergency evacuations. My heart trembled! Not like usual, where there are suicides and explosions somewhere in Kabul. So, my heart trembled. I knew they were supposed to leave Kabul that day, meaning they should have brought themselves near the entrance doors of Kabul Airport. That day I felt with all my soul that we are unfortunate people and why!
Then, I told Ali why we were so miserable. He said no, we are not, and again I said yes, we are miserable. But he didn’t resist anymore and said yes! We are unlucky. It is unfortunate that your country is not a safe place to live and that you are in danger of losing your life or the lives of your loved ones at any moment. This is an undeniable fact. But among hundreds, thousands, and millions of other Afghan people, we were fortunate that day Leila and her family survived. We were very lucky that they were waist deep in the water channel, which was the boundary between the helpless people and the foreign soldiers near the Kabul airport.
Before that day, when we saw photos and videos of Kabul Airport, I cursed the person who made such a decision and forced people to wade into the water up to their waists to reach the entrance of the airport. But that day, when I realized that the same water canal had saved the life of my dear Leila, her daughter, and her husband, I just cried. A safe place, maybe one day, a safe place is a place where the heart is calm and feels safe.
But today, the safe place is only where we survive. Not half and half. Let’s all survive together. The day we are sure that our life is not in danger of dying every day, we may think that now we have to find a place where we can live well. Let’s all live well together because if one of us is in pain, the safety of others is also lost. But until today, a safe place is only a place where we all survive together, without the risk of losing our lives.
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