Lazy Letter: Village By The End Of The Valley

I eventually went to that village last night. I went there with my dad, didn’t want to go alone. Remember the village that I told you about before, remember?! I assume it depends if you’ve received any of my letters.

There’s a village on the other side of our valley, in between the two mountains in the distance. I had attempted going there twice before. The first time was about a year ago when mom, aunt Rana and I decided to walk there. We left the house for a morning picnic, breakfast and tea, but somewhere on our way, we thought it’d be brilliant if we visited that village. Harzevarz must be the name, but I’m not so sure. My grandpa was from there. Mom and aunt Rana had spent a lot of time there when they were little, and kept telling me their sweet memories of their childhood–it’s their father’s land after all.

We walked through the meadows, passed the farmlands and realized what a great joy it was to be surrounded by nature, breath the cold mountain air, look through the horizon and be sheltered by the bright blue sky. This land is rather flat, and the sky is wide open and splendid right above our heads.

It was a cold morning, windy and chilly. The clouds passed and went, hid the sun every now and then. Although it was such a long walk, I didn’t feel tired all that much. Maybe the adventurous path left the exhaustion behind. Great fun, I wish we’d made it to the village that morning. It would’ve been one happy ending for all. We got so close, but not quite there, still another forty-five minutes to go. We could see the silhouette of the village before we gave up, and that was enough for us to return home. It took us four hours.

The second time was a couple weeks after that. This time I took the journey with my cousin, Negin.

I already knew we wouldn’t make it to the village, it was the long path that we enjoyed the most. We switched direction a bit to stop by the lake. I’m not sure if that lake exists all year long, or it was there for the spring; pretty lovely either way. I stared at the village resting beyond the lake, and promised I’d eventually visit there. I was only curious.

I don’t know why I thought it was such a magical place, whatever that gave me the clue to imagine tall green trees and an overflowing river with freshness, crisp grassy fields surging in the wind and ordinary life of happy people. I have no idea why.

I drove there last night, the long-time dreamed village. I asked dad to ride with me. I need to make sure that I take advantage of every little time we have together. So he came along and we chitchat on the way. It was dark, and I couldn’t see what was going on around the road, or beyond the headlights of our car.It was a great disappointment, I have to say, huge letdown. Maybe I could blame global warming, and my overexcited imagination for seeing things the other way around.

2.June.17 – Tazekand Olia, Iran