{"id":195,"date":"2006-10-21T10:55:14","date_gmt":"2006-10-21T10:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/nucleus-import\/?p=195"},"modified":"2006-10-21T10:55:14","modified_gmt":"2006-10-21T10:55:14","slug":"when-everyone-is-lonely-no-one-is-lonely-mahnaz-badihian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/when-everyone-is-lonely-no-one-is-lonely-mahnaz-badihian\/","title":{"rendered":"When everyone is Lonely No One is Lonely —Mahnaz Badihian"},"content":{"rendered":"

When everyone is Lonely No One is Lonely<\/b><\/p>\n

Pooyan.S <\/div>\n

\nI was one of those people who was never lonely, even in loneliness…how I can be lonely when I don\u2019t know the most accessible person that I know. Life did not leave me a moment to be alone with her to know her.
\nThis is the reason I have a date with \u201cmyself<\/b>.\u201d I wanted to see \u201cmyself<\/b>\u201d, talk to her, look at her eyes, hold her hands, caress her, and get to know her. <\/p>\n

\u201cMyself<\/b>\u201d is the one that has been with me and I have not seen her. I don\u2019t know her. I am excited for this meeting. I was tired of loneliness. It was time to start a relation with someone. I need someone to read my poems to.<\/p>\n

I have told her that I will be wearing a beautiful red dress. I will have a beautiful red flower on my hair and I will have beautiful red lipstick on my lips. I have told her that I will be wearing beautiful red shoes that I bought yesterday. Red shoes with open toes with my painted toenails appearing. I have told her that I will shave my legs as smooth as velvet. I will shine my legs with olive oil. I have told her I will be wearing on my cheek and neckline my favorite perfume Poison…
\nI will be restless when I meet her.<\/p>\n

I have a date with” myself<\/b>“. Will I like her? Will she have patience to hear all I have to say? Does she like poetry? I don\u2019t know. I have to wait to meet her.<\/p>\n

My very soaring mirror I placed on the ground and leaned against the wall below the enclave. I put a black velvet chair right in front of the mirror. There was a small table with a few delicious chocolates I brought from Bariloche on top. The music of Dinner for Two was floating in the room.
\n How happy I was! I was having a date with” myself<\/b>“. The time of our meeting was 7:00 P.M. I shared with her that I feel lonelier in the evenings than in the mornings. I told her that is the reason to meet in the evening. <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know “myself<\/b>“. I hope I get to know her during this meeting.<\/p>\n

She told me she was wearing a long blue dress and she would pull her hair up with a white flower and wear blue shoes.<\/p>\n

It was strange feeling of platonic enjoyment that I felt inside of me before our momentous meeting. I wish we could talk to each other openly. I want us to expose our naked souls. I wish we both would speak out and talk and scream! Just like Beat Poets who expressed their minds with no hesitation. <\/p>\n

From this meeting I wanted to empty, empty out my soul. <\/p>\n

It was getting close to 7:00 P.M… I turned off all the lights with the lingering smell of aromatic candles burning. I was numb with euphoria… I had a book and a notebook in my hand resting on the black chair in front of the mirror. <\/p>\n

\nThe room was empty. From the window I could see the mountains that were reaching to the sky, and the sea that at the end of the day is pouring into the sunset. <\/p>\n

In the room there was no sound except the calming music and I was growing inpatient to meet with” myself<\/b>“.<\/p>\n

But truly, why is she late? <\/p>\n

I was outside myself waiting. I was looking at my beautiful dress, my painted nails which were coming out of my beautiful red shoes. So, where is “myself<\/b>“? Why is she late? <\/p>\n

Where is her heart and mind occupied? <\/p>\n

I poured a cup of coffee for myself and started playing with it. There was a book in English in my hand called…I read part of it. Suddenly, a poem came to my mind named Lost Prescription. I started writing it down. <\/p>\n

Oh, how difficult it is to wait. I have a date with “myself<\/b>“, why isn\u2019t she coming?<\/p>\n

Why is she lost?<\/p>\n

Why is she forgetful? The mirror was empty of any images. I was surprised not to see the image of myself in the mirror. Why can\u2019t I see the image of myself in the mirror?<\/p>\n

Why does this mirror not show the image of myself? Why is the image of the chair visible? Why is the image of the sunset on the mirror? <\/p>\n

I was restless. I have been waiting for this moment for a long time, the meeting of me with \u201cmyself<\/b>\u201d. <\/p>\n

I rubbed my weary eyes and removed my glasses. I replaced it with a new pair of glasses that I had bought recently. Although I could see better but still I could not see the detail. <\/p>\n

I was asking myself, is something wrong with me?<\/p>\n

Have I done anything wrong?<\/p>\n

Am I not an interesting woman? So, why has \u201cMyself<\/b>\u201d not arrived? <\/p>\n

Maybe this mirror is angry with me and the mirror decides on images to show or not to show.<\/p>\n

Maybe my image is not built for a mirror. <\/p>\n

Maybe my image is always absent. <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know…<\/p>\n

\nHow excited I was for this meeting. <\/p>\n

How beautiful I looked tonight.<\/p>\n

How euphoric I am tonight. I wanted to met \u201cMyself<\/b>\u201d and get to know her more.<\/p>\n

Maybe I am asleep and the time for our meeting has not arrived yet?<\/p>\n

Maybe I had an appointment with \u201cMyself<\/b>\u201d for tomorrow and I made a mistake.<\/p>\n

No, no. The meeting was today.<\/p>\n

Maybe she is not fond of me.<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t know me and I don\u2019t know her.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t see “myself<\/b>” in the mirror. The mirror is blind. The mirror is dark and my eyes are blind.<\/p>\n

I looked once more into the mirror. I stared. <\/p>\n

I saw a blue dress of an absent woman. An image with no body or a head. Only a blue dress. The breeze from the window seemed to move it. I told myself I should have stopped the music. <\/p>\n

Maybe this music is the one that is not letting me notice the arrival of \u201cMyself<\/b>\u201d. <\/p>\n

Now the room was calm and quiet. The only sound was the sound of flickering candles while the perfume captured the room. <\/p>\n

I could not even hear my breathing. My heart was quiet. Suddenly, I saw two amazed eyes in the mirror. I didn\u2019t know those two eyes. These two eyes are strange…they are lost…disbelieving…scared…lonely…strange. I stared into those eyes. I was scared to start a conversation with her. <\/p>\n

I was scared to initiate revealing secrets…I was scared of \u201cMyself<\/b>\u201d. But I was happy to see two eyes in front of the eyes of myself. Two friends, two souls, two.<\/p>\n

How familiar these two eyes were. I have seen them many years ago in the seclusion of loneliness among the unspoken words. <\/p>\n

I said thank you for coming, you must be \u201cMyself<\/b>\u201d? Am I right? Then, I added, I liked your blue dress.<\/p>\n

After a long and strange silence, she said<\/p>\n

You mean my red dress?<\/p>\n

Then she said,<\/p>\n

Listen I want to read you my new poem called Lost Prescription<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When everyone is Lonely No One is Lonely I was one of those people who was never lonely, even in loneliness…how I can be lonely when I don\u2019t know the most accessible person that I know. Life did not leave me a moment to be alone with her to know her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":546,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/546"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}