In those days past
\nwhen summer was the overriding season
\nour smiles were open
\nthe cynical twists of the mouth didn’t exist.
\nThere was no pain behind those eyes.
\nIt was the Sobes and the Guccis and the core Chicago youth.
\nIt was frisbee and cooking together,
\nmoving in and out of dorms
\nand driving Lake Shore Drive at 2 am.
\nIt was trips from the suburbs to the city
\nwith analyzing and thought.
\nIt was singing and praying and fixing the Center
\nIt was CCA and UIC, trips to Louhelen in February
\n(lets spend Valentines day talking about college).
\nIt was sisters and brothers, blood-bound or not,
\nand finding the people you didn’t know existed.
\nIt was outward-looking orientation, before we ever heard that word.
\nIt was service without asking “What’s in it for me?”.
\nIt was volunteering at the House of Worship.
\nIt was the beginning of the Chicago Youth Desk and the interns.
\nIt was beaches and Ruhi book 7.
\nIt was when the word “relationship” didn’t matter
\nand “crushes” were silent, beautiful things,
\nwhen Shakespearean love brought nothing but smiles.
\nIt was dancing and late night calls to say “I’m sorry, did I offend you?”
\nIt was mutual support and realizing it was ok to say
\n“I love you” without it meaning anything more than that.
\nIt was the “one girl with all the guys” or
\nthe “one guy with all the girls” but no one noticed.
\nIt was all of the Chicago youth BLAZONING the name of Baha’u’llah,
\nand singing to the National Spiritual Assembly.
\nIt was nearly drowning in the river and 24 hour diners.
\nIt was Persian Conference and Greenlake,
\nand ninja videos shot in a Japanese garden.
\nIt was jam sessions and crazy guitar serenades.
\nIt was the Taste of Chicago and Erykah Badu,
\nthe 3rd of July with fireworks on the beach.
\nIt was the UofC and The Pit,
\nand all night talks about deep subjects.
\nIt was dinner and movies and an intense lack of sleep.
\nIt was when goals and dreams seemed realistic.
\nIt was true friendship with that honesty and laughter…real connections.
\nIt was joy and discovery, freedom from judgement and drama.
\nIt was 2003.
\nAnd it made us what we are today.<\/p>\n
(Neda & Sholeh collaborated to write this memory collection)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In those days past when summer was the overriding season our smiles were open the cynical twists of the mouth didn’t exist. There was no pain behind those eyes. It was the Sobes and the Guccis and the core Chicago…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sholeh.calmstorm.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sholeh.calmstorm.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sholeh.calmstorm.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sholeh.calmstorm.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sholeh.calmstorm.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sholeh.calmstorm.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sholeh.calmstorm.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sholeh.calmstorm.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sholeh.calmstorm.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}