11/02/2026
Especially at a time like this, I'm missing my family
مامانبزرگ
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"My heart has grown tight for you" (I miss you) I would say, and my maman bozorg (grandmother) would smile and laugh, or sometimes just give a short nod, like that's the most natural, ordinary experience, for your heart to grow tight
I could never get the grief out of my family, who had to leave everything and everyone they knew, not because they didn't love Iran but because of the impossible choices we face in life.
I could never get the ache out of my mother's heart who didn't see her family for almost three decades of wandering, displaced so many times- learning to shape herself into new languages, teaching me to buy us privilege,
oh how I wish I learned farsi
Now when I speak it, I hear my maman bozorg still joke from above, chastising me, telling me to keep connected to all of our parts.
And so I called my aunty and asked how to make Kuku Sabzi, a herb omelette that's so ridiculously hard to make
"Azizam, you should ask maman bozorg, she made it the best"
And so I asked maman bozorg in my heart and I heard her joke and chastise me and with that cheeky, loving glint in her eye, she told me
"Ghorbunet beram, google it"
And so I googled it and made it, and I got to share it with the most precious, most brightest light that came into our worlds, Nooshin Joon
The joy that lives on in resistance, the strength of the iranian people, the unyielding love that pulses through all of these lifelines
The kuku sabzi today was the best I've ever made,
And I wish I could have shared it with you, too
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**I didn't take a photo of my kuku sabzi so this is a google image to show you what it looks like
