The Words of Marriage

Last night was an emotional night. I had stuffed invitation envelopes until I couldn’t take it anymore, and my life was about to change -- I was really getting married! I got into bed, exhausted, but wanting to finish the last few pages of the book that I was reading: Reading Lolita In Tehran by Azar Nafisi.

On the last few pages, I found two paragraphs that, although not related to getting married, made me feel like I walked into a twilight zone. Although the context wasn’t the same, the author felt like I felt: I’m going to a new place, a new life, and the life that I know now is going to change. Hang on, I’m not saying this in a bad way. It’s just an emotional change.

Caveat: I didn’t love this book. The reviews were fantastic, but I found it a hard read. Maybe because my mind was on other things. Like GETTING MARRIED!

You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again.

That day when I left, the sun was fading and the air was mild, the trees a verdant green, and I had many reasons to feel sad. Every object and every face had lost its tangibleness and appeared like a cherished memory: my parents, friends, students, this street, those trees, the withdrawing light from the mountain in the mirror. But I was vaguely elated and, to paraphrase Muriel Spark's heroine in her wonderful novel 'Loitering with Intent,' I went about my way rejoicing, thinking how wonderful it is to be a woman and a writer at the end of the twentieth century.

Don’t cry. I did that enough for all of us. We’re going to a wonderful place, ladies. We’re going to married life with the guy that we love.

Reading Lolita In Tehran [Chapters]

TAGS: Book, Reading Lolita In Tehran
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