Sometimes, life seems unfair
Those who are honest
Don’t succeed
Those who lie brazenly
Get away with it
But do we ever consider the soul
Of the one who lies, cheats and climbs
Do we ever think of how they
Will be remembered
When they die?
Can they bring their power
And fortune with them?
I wonder if they’ve heard of Karma
The repercussions of our actions
Will be felt when we journey on
This world is an illusion
Reality awaits us
July 27, 2015
There is something about the familiar
Which is very comforting
No introduction necessary
Old feelings come to fore:
A box of Persian sweets from ran
Brought by my cousin
Sent by my aunt
Takes me back to my visit to Yazd
I pick up the Sohané Ardi
And gently take a first bite
As it melts in my mouth
My senses take me years back
When one spring
My father, mother, brother and I
Drove to that part of Iran
My first memory is of gazing at the sky
Dotted thickly with luminous stars
So many stars that the sky seemed white
The endless dessert around us
Dust on the road
Dust in the car
The wide streets of Yazd
The numerous bakeries in town
Seeing pashmak* being made
Smelling the sweets all around
I take a second bite of Sohan
A feast for my taste buds
Now comes the memory of Naw Ruz
When we used to live in Iran
Where our Haft Seen table was prepared with love
The family visits
The sweets we ate
The shirini** my mom baked
The love we shared
And now…
The Haji Badoom, Baklava
Nane Berenjy and Sohan
Cause these memories to flood my mind!
Lida Berghuis
April 4th, 2010
Written after receiving sweets from dear aunt Badri
*pashmak is a Persian sweet resembling
cotton candy
**shirini is sweets in Persian
Sometimes you just have to sit with the feelings you feel
They can’t be explained or reasoned out
They can’t be banished from your mind
They can’t be ignored
The only thing you can do is accept them
You have to walk through them, not around them
July 17, 2017
I travel to meet people who are living a different life from mine
I enter their lives for a short time and having exchanged thoughts, ideas and feelings, I depart
Sometimes it will be years before I see the same people again
Sometimes I’ll never see them at all
It’s a short intense relationship
A connection of the hearts
And the fact that I won’t be with these friends for a while, seems not to matter
I don’t know why!
July 14, 2017
Amsterdam
Rediscovering my homeland from afar
Sometimes I feel like a tourist in my own town
There are also things I’m discovering for the first time
Technology makes this possible now
I travel to my place of birth everyday
And hang out with my friends
I learn about them and their experiences
There is good and bad everywhere
And there are challenges there as there are anywhere else
What I’m experiencing with my friends
Which is special though
Is an openness that’s new to me
My friends accept me as I am and
I feel a sense of belonging
I missed this feeling in my childhood
The feeling that I could share all that was dear to me
There was always this barrier between us
A divide in understanding
Time and distance, and new experiences
Have removed this barrier
And in some ways now, in a land far off
I feel closer to my countrymen
June 26th, 2017
lida's musings 