Same Same But Different

When we were back in the US last month, Alex and I came across this picture at his mom’s house in California.

Alex’s mom was living in Tehran when this photo was taken, serving as an officer in the US Navy and working to conduct joint training exercises with the Iranian naval forces. The man on the left is the Iranian tea boy from her office… and yes, sharp eyes will notice that there’s a picture of the Shah of Iran on the wall behind them, which anchors the image firmly in the pre-1979 era more than any date scratched on the back of the Polaroid possibly could.

Needless to say, as I looked at this picture I was struck by the difference that 35 years can make… can you imagine that when our parents were our age, members of the US military (uncovered women, to boot!) were welcomed onto Iranian soil as trusted allies?

But more than that, I was struck by the funny similarities between the woman in this photo and myself. Alex’s mom was exactly 30 when it was taken - in fact, I think that’s what prompted her to get it out, since we were in town a few days before my 30th birthday. She was a blonde American girl who struck out on her own after university and found herself in the Middle East a few years later. While there, she acquired a dashing American-but-not-really-American suitor (Alex’s dad, like Alex, was raised abroad) who would become her husband. Throughout her time in the region, she was legendary for her occasional cultural missteps (apparently even in pre-revolutionary Iran, it was not a good idea to go to the religious shrine of Qom in shorts and a tank top), her fierce haggling over carpet prices, and her tendency to disappear off to places like Afghanistan for the weekend.

Sound familiar?

Okay no, you’re right - she was way cooler than I am, especially when you hear the stories about her going to the Soviet Union as part of an official US delegation and short-sheeting the KGB’s beds, or eliciting riotous laughter from a group of high-level Greek naval officers when she told them, in an inadvertent use of off-color Greek slang, that she had left “her little snatch” in the hotel room. (She meant purse, but apparently in Greek this is also synonymous with a part of the female anatomy?)

Relative coolness aside, I think it’s funny the way that personal histories and narratives repeat themselves, and the way that fate can lead you into families that are so different from - and yet in many ways complementary to - your own.

And as for that old wisdom about men marrying their mothers… ahem… no comment.

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