The Solitary Girl -1

Days, weeks and months were coming and going and I was gradually growing bigger and bigger. My poems too just like myself were becoming taller and greater. My father had gotten me enrolled in the American Girl’s School in Tehran. During those days rare girls used to go to school. In fact there was no school for the girls except… Anyway, I was among the lucky girls. I was a daughter of E’tesam-ul-Mulk and was lucky enough to go to school. English language was also taught at this school. Madam Soler, the Principal of the School, was a nice lady. She was kind and understanding and anytime I met her I would learn something new from her. She used to encourage me, saying: “Dear Parvin, you are very good in learning English. I am sure within a short time you will learn English completely!”

But I wasn't thinking so. I excelled other students in English and Persian literature, though English was a bit difficult for me. Although I had a number of friends at the school, I liked to be lonely. I loved loneliness. It wasn't in my control. As if loneliness had been intermingled with my nature. As if my existence had been intertwined with loneliness through an invisible, thin thread. A threat without any knot to be opened. A thread I couldn't see!

One day Madam Soler located me at the school yard. In the first place, she talked a little bit about my subjects and then added: “Dear Parvin, you are very lonely and isolationist. This is what everybody says. This loneliness isn't at all good for a good girl of your age. Try to mix up with the people around you!”

I replied: “Madam, I am not that much lonely.” Indeed I wasn't that lonely. Every thing around me was alive and had a tongue. And I could make friendship with every thing. Corn-rose talked to me. Lily talked to me in a hundred languages. I was in love. I loved mountains, plains, the sky and the earth. Can one who mixes up with the trees and greeneries, and sings with the birds and butterflies and anytime dates with the blue sky, stars, moon and sun, be lonely? Nevertheless, my friends and Madam Soler were right. In their viewpoints, I was lonely. But I loved this loneliness. Poetry filled my entire world and I didn't lack anything except the poems that were far away from me and weren't reconciling with me. My greatest aspiration was to reach out my uncomposed poems.

Translated by: Sadroddin Musawi