Home

It always has me hooked. Writing. This sentence. The very next word that appears on this blank canvas. The next concatenation of words to make the sentence. The next sentence that you get to read. I sometimes wish I had a paintbrush to write with. That would make words bolder, thicker, roaring, like a lions last sigh after a big deer dinner. I would use black acrylic, wait, red, to write the words. Wouldn't a red line be more enticing for the eyes to look at? But apart from the aesthetics of writing, and by that I mean a paintbrush, a fine ballpoint, or a papermate ink pen, there needs to be substance. That is what has me hooked. What could I possibly write about that William Shakespeare, John Metcalf, Fred Wah, or Yann Martel haven't already considered. All the unique thoughts are already thought about and written. In this mass of regurgitated literature, what would an intimidated black papermate pen like mine do? The terrifying silence of a page is always my motivation to write. But then something happens when my pen starts scribbling down words, shapes, strikes, dots. A doubt sets in. What do I write about? Who will read this? Can I trust you, who is reading this, my audience, as much as my empty sheet of paper or are you more intimidating? Judging the very existence of these lines. I can see it in your minds eye that you want more justification of this existence, and me wishing I could provide more than just this search for meaning. Eye to eye, together.  You see, I am searching for a place to call home. A perpetual quest since I was five. I first discovered the fleeting nature of this world then, right after my grandmother passed away. We were living in Tehran at the time, same neighbourhood as she was. The Iraqi bomb hit her home and not ours. We did hear and feel the aftershocks but survived. I remember my little brother crying non-stop for hours after the incidence. I was more used to it as I thought it's another earthquake but really realized the impact when I saw her favourite  glass menagerie and all the showcased little creatures broken. My grandmother tended to this monument more than anything else. The special colourful lights she chose to show the different objects always had me in awe and peaked my curiosity so much that I would spend hours watching and thinking diffuse thoughts about the figurines. What was that elephant doing there with a red light  shining on it, or the marble Buddha statue?   Everything was broken onto the ground on our next visit to grandma's and my mom was crying. I can still hear her panting for air.  We came to Canada not too long after, but the search for home never stopped. I studied science, biology, cell and molecular biology to understand why the glass objects of my grandmothers house were broken. Why did we move to Canada? Why does my mother cry?  This very white page is an ode to the fleeting answers I have discovers. Every word betraying the discovery. Perhaps, home is the silence we came from or the silence we go to, and words, well, these very daring words, are light packages, sparkling stars, or broken glass pieces leading me in the dark towards the safe and silence of home. This white blank silent canvas is testimony to home. Welcome to mine.