My school slippers

by: E. A. Sahraeian

 We live, work, move, and die all in boxes, we move from one to another thinking we achieved greatness, and we choose different names for each one. All this to convince whom!?

One is a house, one might be a café and another one car; we continue making up words to distract ourselves from the real world, if anything new threatens that routine, it will scare us. I think we are normally happier without changes, and we despise those who take chances and achieve their goals from the corner of our comfort. Life passes us by and we are not going out of our boxes, we lose the chance to see a quarter of the world maybe even a quarter of our own country, afterward we end up being old, grumpy, unhappy, and with a real view of the world. Enough about my thoughts, let’s move to the next house together.

It took some time to move there, not because of distance but the time it took to be built. This would be the third house in a row that we moved in. Everyone in the family worked in that house no matter their age or gender, with the hope of the house being finished as soon as possible. The big ‘Lab’ let’s call it, was at the end of the front yard; It was not that connected to the other parts of the house. I don’t remember going back in there ever again and I didn’t remember this until writing this down.

As you might already know, the view by now was the same vineyard, the mountain, and the colorful hill they felt more like a fantasy or a view from a dream, the surrounding walls were so high I thought they were miles and miles away, it was as we have moved to entirely different part of the town.

The entrance was from the side of the vineyard. There was a small black metal door leading to the unknown darkness. as for the house itself was built on a rectangle-shaped land, all the windows were facing the tall lifeless cement walls around the yard. To enter the living area, there was a large glass wall with a small sliding door, this was a sitting area like a living room/guest room. On the left was a small room, to enter, you had to come through the living room, and its window, you guessed it, was facing the yard too. This tiny room was supposed to be our “Separate’’ part of the house which was built “just” for us. To be honest the room also looked like a prison compared to the other places that we have lived in. There was one rug on its floor and that was all. Thinking back, the one room we lived in before was much better, with more space, freedom, and definitely full of life compared to this ‘’new’’ clean house.

By the time we moved in it was time for school again and I was excited as always to go back to school. My mother was at work most of the time so one of my brothers took me to a thrift store to buy me shoes for the new school year (how exciting). After five hours of looking, I gave up and he bought me a pair of shoes that I knew would not be a good fit for me. We went back home and I am all ready for tomorrow, everything was laid down nicely on the floor right next to me, and new notebooks were each named; the courses I liked more were getting the prettiest notebooks. I was starting grade five so it was my first year studying English. I was ready, until the night, the grownups started arguing that those shoes are old-lady shoes and I should not wear them. I told myself: “well that will not stop me from attending my first day at school, it will define my class and friends for the entire year”. Having these thoughts on my mind and with a broken heart, tears were stuck in the back of my throat; NOT crying because that would have brought on another lecture. I went to sleep. As I have mentioned in the previous posts, we ALL slept in the same Room!

Early morning I woke up, ready but didn’t have any shoes so I wore slippers and went to school, and waited in the Line. The school officials were reading our names and telling us to make a group. The children started noticing my slippers, so the pointing and laughing started at that moment. I started questioning every decision I have ever made! How I was wishing the ground under me would crack open and swallow me whole, and never to be heard from again. The shame I felt at that moment… However, I finished the school day; I didn’t cut any classes and the teachers didn’t send me home either. When I went home no one even knew what happened to me or where I was or what I wore to school that day. I have learned already to push down every humanly feeling I have ever had in the deep dark well of my heart. I still struggle to share my feelings, I feel like it is always a trap. Furthermore, on the same evening, someone else from the family came back home with brand new white-as-snow sneakers just for me. I put it down next to my pillow when I went to bed that night; it fit me perfectly like it was made just for me. I felt like a star the next day at school.

One month after the shoe story we moved out of that house for some reason yet unknown to me. We left one of my sisters there with some relatives. She was always the best part of me, with her beside me, I was and still am a better version of myself.

Right here at this point the chapter of my life in nature and its adventures finished and I started living in a bigger and more crowded neighborhood amongst people, making friends. I always felt ‘the more one goes deeper to socialize with others the more they forget about life and the simple beauties of it’. Maybe I am wrong but I think humans tend to become more distracted by worldly materials instead of a pure innocent beauty that is given to us by God for free.

A sneak peek into the next house, was one of the strangest places I have lived in; thinking back, it felt like stumbling upon undiscovered wild tribes from Indiana Jones movies the way they ate and behaved.