Kathy to Hilary, February 14, 1973, Tehran, Iran Battle of Kerbala 
February 14, 1973
Dear Hilary,
Today is St. Valentine’s Day--AND Ashura! This means men are marching down our street--we live next door to a mosque--waving banners and beating themselves with chains. I can hear them chanting and mourning over the murder of Hossein at Kerbala. It’s very emotional--even though he died more than a thousand years ago. Good for them for feeling it so strongly. I guess some Christians get upset about Christ’s crucifixion but it seems most of the Christians I’ve ever known just get worked up about which hat to wear to church on easter sunday. The American School students are whining because there are no Valentine’s dances because it’s a sad Moslem day of mourning. Boo hoo hoo.
Hossein martyred 
It was nice to hear from you after eons and eons of silence, although you didn’t say very much. William and Mary seems like an admirable place to go to--what will you major in? or do you know? Williamsburg is beautiful country as far as I remember from that 7th grade trip. I remember what an idiot I was and had to be rescued from the maze--still, I enjoyed the trip. (Was it really more than 4 years ago? How old we become so soon!) Our 17th year approaches--17 is such an OLD age but there’s only one way not to be that old!
As for living in New Jersey, I don’t think we will. I don’t think we’re going to leave Tehran at all, which suits me just fine. I want to get my Baccalaureate (I could in New York but not without a lot of bother and expense) and be accepted as really foreign by whatever college I go to--they like it better somehow. I’ve given up on Oxford and/or Cambridge because they have their own entrance exams in December, which means I lose a year just to take them. I’ve decided, perhaps, on Edinburgh and Anthropology or Ecology or Biology or BioChemistry or...too many choices I think. Shelley is dead and as far as making a career out of him goes--people have been dissecting him and his work for 150 years so I don’t think I can add anything. Not anything anyone would care about.
More about the paintings.
5:17:19 AM 
|
