A wonderful feeling of joy would come to me by opening the gray door of my grandparents' big house, which grew small as I grew big. We had to travel to my Grandparents house for about one hour, and I clearly remember that we had flown over this beautiful, green and full of life oak forest which was followed by a pink lake. The best part of the trip was guiding the taxi driver to the allies that would lead to their house. After opening the gray metallic door, I would look for my grandma. She would run outside of the house with a big smile on her face and would greet us with hugs and kisses with a big excitement and joy. The house I will forever have embedded in my mind is located in Tehran, Iran at the end of a blind alley. My Grandparents' house looks quiet and serene, surrounded by its own garden. The front door of the house is connected with the garden by a stone path made of limestone which is smooth to step on. Along both sides of the path were some pink and purple wildlings. The garden is bordered by a circle of different types of tall, green trees and beautiful, colorful flowers which made the garden smell amazing at all times. As far as I can recall red roses were in the garden at all times. The dew would shine on top of the red petals every morning. The first time I heard that roses bloom once or twice a year I was surprised. I remember I would spend the afternoons enjoying the coziness and happiness of the living room, “red room” as everyone calls it. Someone outside the family cannot guess which room it is. Because the room is no longer covered in red velvet wallpaper and a new life has been given to the furniture. They don't have small red roses on top of the milky background anymore. Instead, it is covered in a light blue velour. There is still evidence of red in the room. A medium-sized painting of red rose bush is hanging on a white plaster wall. The painting is in bright colors but somehow it is still dark. It is framed in dark wood. Every color in it is bold and it is painted with such precise lines that it almost looks like a photo. The lines are curved, yet sharply defined. I never saw the “red room” in its original state. I didn't like drinking any kind of tea but the only time that I would be the afternoons in the “red room”. My grandma would bring me a special one. It was lighter than the other ones. The best part about it was the sweets next to it. Carrot cake, banana bread, apple pie or petibor biscuits, didn't matter which one, they all tasted differently in the red room. They tasted wonderful. After having tea I would invite my dolls for a picnic. I would sit under a short tree with feather-like leaves in lavender, next to the swimming pool. The main element of the tea party was my small set of rose teapots and cups. They were similar to a set that grandma has. I would spend hours under the shadow of that tree. My grandma would make a big jar of lemonade with big pieces of ice, it was the colour of summer sun. It would steal the heat from my sole. Sometimes she would play with me while drinking the cold lemonade and she would tell me stories. These days when we fly to Tehran there are no signs of green forest or pink lake. I don't need to guide the taxi driver though the allies. He has the destination address on his phone. Still, sometimes I show them the way. They may think I'm weird but I don't care. I like to go through the allies as fast as possible and get to that grey door. These days grandma doesn't run out in the garden when we arrive. She observes me running through the gate and then garden with a warm smile on her face from a large window of the red room. Although the garden still has green plants, it is not as green as it one day was. Once in a while bushes of roses appear, and grandma asks someone to pick a few for the red room. Grandma doesn't pour tea anymore. So no one brings me a special one. I still drink tea in the red room but without sweets. Grandma forgets how many she had and it is not good for her so anyone who pours tea doesn't bring sweets with it. Grandma points at the dired short tree with feather-like leaves in lavender and tells me “do you remember the picnics you did under that tree?” After having a bitter sip of the tea she points at the short tree again and asks, “do you remember the picnics you did under that tree?”. I miss everything about the tea and chocolate cake in that room but I prefer drinking bitter tea with her in the red room to anywhere else. I enjoy listening to her stories over and over just like the old days in the garden. The roses are not always around, we should enjoy their company while they are still around.

(this image by the amazing artist Pierre Abraham Rochat inspired today's story) I was the happiest kid growing up. Or at least that's how I remembered it - it's nearly impossible to focus on all the negative memories when you grow up in such a beautiful place as I did. The beauty is subjective though. There's always a lot of crap - literal shit - when you live on a farm. Crap from chickens, crap from pigs. There's dust everywhere, a side effect of having dirt roads and rickety vehicles that throw up the dust as they churn their way slowly down the road. The early mornings are cold, with dew settling on every surface like a layer of humid skin. There's no mistaking it, life on a farm isn't like what the fairytales describe. After all, who wants to write about the nuances of everyday life? But it was these moments that rounds out the scene, fleshes out the tale and grounds everything in reality. So I'm doing you a favor by telling you about chicken shit. This isn't a fairytale hamlet, this is the real place where I spent a good portion of my life, and I kind of miss it - the dirt roads and early morning dew and all, but not the shit. The summer heat was unbearable. The sun seemed like the heat source of a furnace, casting golden rays that baked the clay by the tiny river. The ground cracked under the heat, like the yellow crust of pies, dusted over by the dust like a layer of flour. the adults sweated under the sun as they planted and weeded the crops. From a distance the scene is picturesque - quaint, if you will - the image of rural life straight from the pages of a National Geographics magazine. Close up it's the scent of sweat, the buzz of bugs from the fields, and the way that clothes stick to sweaty bodies. The very air tasted of warmth, it draped heavily over the people in the fields, and pressed oppressively on sweltering trees. The occasional breeze offered some relief as it churned the heavy air, lifting sweat soaked clothes and whisking away the blanket of heat that enveloped the figures bent over the fields. By late summer even the air itself has a golden tint, dyed the same hue of heavy yellow as the sun's rays. The crops are finally readying for harvest as they slowly turn the same shade as the sunlight they've been soaking up. Everywhere you look there is a sea of gold, shifting in the yellow colored breeze. The tips of the plants move in synchronized waves, the ceaseless motion as they bow under the grazing touches of the wind creates ripples on that vast golden ocean. A thousand swaying plants shuffled their leaves and whispered to each other, and the sound of their voices scratched the air as they narrated the sway of yellow waves. The dragonflies are especially busy this time around. They hover over ponds, occasionally a tap at the water will cause circular ripples to break the calm surface. Startled by its own distorted reflection, the dragonfly darts away, the rays from the high noon sun glinting like golden sparkles from their shiny bodies. But perhaps the most memorable, and the place that made my entire memory of summer yellow, was the field of rapeseed tucked just under the shade of a hill. Their bright yellow flowers looked almost unrealistic, so strong was their color that the field of flowers looked like spillage from an artist's palette. I can still see it now, just behind my eyelids, that picturesque field, that unmixed yellow, and the thousands of yellow petals like specks of oil paint dropped over the greenery beheath And here I am, an entire continent away from that field of yellow flowers, from the golden air that colored everything it touched. I miss that yellow colored memory of summer, the scenery that accompanied me as seasons changed. But I know too late that it will never be as it was, because even if the scenery didn't change, I know that I did. I'm no longer that same child chasing the sparkle of light bouncing off of dragonflies, no longer am I that kid who traced shifting golden waves before harvest. Who am I really? I could never give an answer. What I do know is that what is lost is lost forever. But least in my memory of summer I preserve that moment the yellow rapeseed flowers bloomed, bright as a Van Gogh painting, and swaying in an eternal summer breeze.