Free Dreaming in English by Laura Fitzgerald Page A

happen in Iran.
    Nine-year-old girls in Iran do not shout gleefully on playgrounds in public view of passersby. They do not draw attention to themselves; they do not go to school with boys. They do not swing their long red hair and expect with Ella’s certainty that romantic love is in their future. And they do not sing of sitting in trees with boys, kissing and producing babies! In the Islamic Republic of Iran, there is nothing innocent about a moment such as this. I know—I was a teacher there. I gave it up, because it was just too hard, taking part in a system of forced prayer, forced hejab , forced adoration of those who martyred themselves for the regime. Life either is or isn’t precious—you have to choose what you believe—and I believe it is, or should be. It was too hard being part of a system I didn’t agree with, one in which girls receive world-class educations and then are smothered as they try to use them to better their world.
    Today, I wonder what it would be like to be a teacher in America.
    Here, I think I might like it.
    Here, everything seems possible for these girls in front of me.
    With my ever-present camera, here are the pictures I take: Ponytails. Bony knees. Short plaid skirts. That neon-pink Band-Aid on Ella’s bare arm. I blur out the boys in the background and keep my focus only on these girls and the way their white socks fold down to their ankles. The easiness of their smiles. They are unburdened, these girls. So fortunate as to take their good fortune for granted.
    After I finish taking my pictures, I lower my camera and catch the eye of a sad-looking boy. He clutches the fence, as if desperate to escape the playground—indeed, as if desperate to escape his life. Back in Iran, I never paid much attention to boys. The stories I imagined for them—the lives I imagined they would one day lead—never seemed as sad as the ones I imagined for girls. But this American boy seems so lost. So lonely. So in need of something no one’s giving him.
    I can’t give him much, but I give him what I have: My best pretty-lady smile. I also wave, but he just stares at me and continues to clutch the fence, and so I go on, his eyes haunting me long after I’ve left him behind. I wonder how anyone can be sad in America, and then I chastise myself. Everywhere in the world, there is happiness, sorrow, fear, longing, and love—and hate, too. These emotions are universal; only the particulars are different.
     
     
     
    Even though it’s not yet eight thirty, I know Rose will have been awake for hours. However, she doesn’t answer her door, so I go up her driveway, past her not-so-new Honda Civic, and peek through the painted-pink iron gate. It’s there, in her backyard, that I find my Rose, on her knees before a flower bed, tending her garden.
    “Excuse me, Rose?” My voice sounds loud in the still morning air, but it doesn’t reach her old-lady ears. I raise my voice and call again. “Rose? Excuse me, please. Hi! Hi, Rose!”
    Finally, she turns, and the pleased look on her face warms my heart. “Oh, my—Tami!” she says. “Is it really you?”
    “It’s really me!”
    Rose works herself to her feet and comes to greet me, removing her gardening gloves as she does. “I’ve been watching the airplanes in the skies all week, wondering which one you were on.” She stops before me, reaches through the gate, and caresses my cheek. “How are you still here?”
    “Rose, you’ll never believe it—I married Ike!”
    “No! Tami, really?”
    “Yes, and I get to stay right here in Tucson!”
    “This is wonderful! The best possible news!” She covers her heart with her hands, overjoyed; then she quickly reaches to unlatch the gate. “Come in! I’ll put some water on. Let’s have tea, and you can tell me all about it.”
    Rose is so thoughtful—she bought a box of sugar cubes just for me so I can have my tea the Persian way when I visit her, where you place the cube in your mouth and let the