This is not a blog

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Ba Charkh dar Golestan 

(Title translated: On my bike in Florida)

Attention: dairy-like post. The real subject of this post is not its story. Rather I'm trying to write down as many details as possible hoping that it would later help me recall my current state of mind.

I'd been wondering how come I never get caught in the rain while it rains so often here. A few nights ago it eventually happened to me. It was raining so hard that a few times I had to stop the bike just because I couldn't keep my eyes open! I was 20 minutes of biking away from home and it started raining 5 minutes after I left. I would usually stop somewhere waiting for the rain to slow down, but it was dark and I was already soaked, so I thought I can as well go on. In few minutes I started to feel the water inside my shoes and the excessive weight in my jeans. I thought I was already soaked, but I was weighing more by the minute.

On a side note, the funny thing is that I was still thinking like I was struggling to escape it. Then I realized that it was already done, and then I started to enjoy the remainder of the ride! There is not much joy into it really, but at least I no longer had to dodge the water on the ground like the other days. Besides, looking at the people inside the cars, I thought I was the only person on that street who didn't have to worry about hiding from the rain any more. Let's get philosophical here and assert that fear of something is more frightening than the something itself!

On another side note, I was thinking tonight that there is a direct Persian translation for the word Florida. It must be Golestan! Florida comes from the Spanish "flor" for flower. Golestan literally means the land of flowers in Persian and it's actually the name of a province in Iran. I'd never been used to living in small towns before, but I've really like it so far here in Florida. Another advantage of living here, I believe, is being away from the mass of California style Persians with their peculiar life style. I have never been to California, but I can imagine the horror that it should be, from what I have seen in friends who fall prey to the trend of following the most visible features of their perceived American life style. Whoa, I got cynical again! Bad dot, Bad dot!

I ended up writing more than what I intended to. At any rate, I would like to confess that despite being soaked, I still believe that riding a bike on a daily basis is the best thing that has happened to me in United States so far. I just love it and I can't get enough of it. I hope the guys at the campus free bike repair don't read this, because I've been frequenting them more than frequently recently.

Ciao!