What’s one thing you know now that would have saved your younger self a lot of pain?

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The Day the Boys Disappeared

I am seven, a student in the first grade.

We are a mixed class. Boys and girls, side by side.

One day the school is closed.

Then the school opens again. In my memory, it is the next day. But maybe it was two days later. Maybe three.

And we are separated.

No more boys. We are just a class of girls.

I don’t understand what is happening.

Later on, we are in the car, driving to my grandparents’ home. We live in Arya Shahr, outside Isfahan, one of the biggest cities in Iran.

My grandparents’ home is, was, and always will be the garden of love. A rectangular garden full of roses. Family gatherings, always. Music, always. Dancing and singing, always. Kids playing together, grown-ups together.

That is where we are heading.

I sit in the back seat of the car, listening to my mother cry.

She is upset about the political situation in Iran. The Shah has left. Khomeini has taken over. Later, I learned that what was happening was called the Iranian Revolution.

At that time, I didn’t understand it. I was just a child, observing the grown-up world through an innocent child’s curious eyes.

What I did notice was that things began to disappear. First the boys in my class. Then the dance plan.

My mother wanted me to become a dancer. Russians were running a ballet school in Arya Shahr, and I was going to go there. We were even out looking for clothes for ballet school. Then the revolution came. The Russians had to leave the country. The ballet school never opened its doors to me.

And life took over.

Years passed.

At age 14, we left Iran. We stayed in Turkey for half a year. Then Norway.

February 1987.

Leaving Iran meant I didn’t need to wear the hijab anymore. For me, that was the biggest, happiest moment. It was a gift.

But I didn’t know anything about what lay in front of me.

Layer by layer, year by year, it has been a deep process.

I went back to Iran in 1993.

My grandfather had died. The roses were gone. My grandmother couldn’t take care of that big garden anymore. And the house, the house I found so amazing, had fallen into decay.

The garden I have gone back to in my mind so many thousand times was not there anymore.

In shamanistic teaching, they say that when something dramatic happens, the soul leaves a part of itself behind.

When we left Iran, I didn’t understand this.

But a part of my soul was for sure there. In that garden. In that house. In that home, the garden of love.

Now I am 54, and I look back at that girl in the back seat. I think about the time “When God Moved Into Our Nation.” I wrote about it once, in another post.

So what is the one thing I know now that could have saved me a lot of pain?

I could say so many things. But this one sits closest to me.

Leaving is not the same as arriving. You can move out of a country in one day. Moving through what it did to us as a family, and to my family back there, is something different.

Maybe that was the real journey.

And what would I whisper to my younger self?

I think I would not say anything.

What could I say?

We don’t know what the future holds. And that is a good thing.

The visionary girl in that photo is still here. Years later, dancing found its way back to her, in my own way. Today, as a holistic movement guide, I use dance and movement to hold space for those who want to move through what they carry. I hold the belief that change is possible, because I have lived it myself.

You can read more about my approach to life in my book, The Silver Route: Via de la Plata, on Amazon.

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I am Parisa Radpey, the writer of these pages and founder of Dhyana Donya Movement & Health. You can read more about me here my background.

Some patterns can’t be thought through. Only walked through. Curious what I mean? Read The Silver Route — now on Amazon.

How do I work with people? Read Free guide

I would love to understand the people I am creating this work for a little better. If you have a few minutes, take my short survey here — it truly helps me understand the needs of real people and what they face on their journey, so I can shape my work around what I hear, rather than simply assuming what might be needed.

You can also find me across social platforms, or let my Spotify playlist move what words can’t. And if you want more, I also write for Wise and Shine Zine, and my latest blog post is called Listening to the Heart: The Story Behind Lau Suna.