I sleepwalk through the balmy grit of Ocean Beach, barely noticing the Zen Bakery and self-serve dog wash and homeless people urinating on weedy lawns.  It’s all I can do to avoid the splotches of gum on the crumbling sidewalk, placing my Nikes carefully, sidestepping when needed.  Then an odd reflection catches my eye.  It dances between the sidewalk and dying grass, stopping when I do.  I shake my right hand to see if my watch is causing the reflection.  The intense spot of light doesn’t move.  I shake my left hand.  The reflection dances again.  It’s the diamond on my ring finger, catching the afternoon sunlight.

Suddenly the world is plunged underwater.  The Jack-in-the-Box on the corner shimmers and blurs.  People school like fish around me.  The depths close and darken.  I glance upward in a panic, body waterlogged, drowning –

“What’s the matter, dearie?” asks an elderly black man pushing a walker.  He stops to crane his neck too.  “Something up there giving you a fright?”

That’s when I realize I’m just crying, that’s all.  I paw at my wet cheeks as the sun comes out again.  “Nothing’s the matter.  I’m okay.  Really.”

“If you say so.”  He resumes his journey down the sidewalk.

I twist my wedding ring around until it’s just a plain band, the diamond concealed in my palm.  But even hidden away I can’t stop obsessing about it.  Just like I can’t stop obsessing about the mute phone in my purse.  Or the cash card in my wallet that only has as much money as Saman gives me.  He’s everywhere in my life, and nowhere at all.

I detour onto Voltaire Street, following the philosopher’s guidance toward the sandy dunes.  A dog beach awaits me, with unleashed canines and owners carrying poop bags.  The sight is odd enough to distract me from my unhappiness.  I’ve never seen a dog beach before.  There’s even a pushcart selling doggie treats and canine sunblock.  Grandfather would’ve tipped back his weathered face in laughter, a reaction of disdain and awe.  This is the America he found so baffling.  Pets elevated to the status of citizens?  Not in the Iran he knew, a place where the wind had eyes.

Given the choice of wandering up the beach or down it, I choose down it.  The decision is unthinking, a reflex.  My subconscious is tugging me south, towards the border.  Thinking of the border makes me think of Tijuana, and thinking of Tijuana makes me think of…well, you know who.

I carry the torn-up pieces of Nick’s business card in my backpack.  I don’t know why I salvaged them from the wastebasket.  Maybe because he cared enough to ask if I was okay.  Or maybe I just wanted to annoy Nasrin when she collected the trash.  All of that seems unimportant now.  Did Nick really mean it when he said call or email if I want?

Probably not.  People never mean what they say.  Not my husband.  Not even my sister.  And definitely not some too-attractive guy who strikes up conversations with strange girls in Tijuana.

In every direction are people.  Surfers rise and topple in lines, kids cluster on beach towels, pink-skinned tourists crowd the boardwalk.  But in their midst I’m alone, a lazy-eyed kebab of a girl with her hijab snapping in the wind and sand leaking into her shoes.  My solitude becomes acute, then unbearable.

When I was 18, I’d already convinced myself of the best thing about marriage – you’re never alone.  The world may separate you on its opposite sides, but whatever you’re feeling – all the expectation and longing, a familiar need, despairing loneliness – your husband is feeling it too.  A union of hearts and souls.

Five years later I know better.  Saman isn’t feeling what I’m feeling.  He never has, and probably never will.

Dr. Phil would say it isn’t Saman’s job to feel what I’m feeling.  Saman’s job is to listen and empathize and support.  That puts all the pressure right back on me.  How can I ask for my husband’s support if I don’t express myself?  Whenever we talk, my voice fades away, my eyes gravitate downward, my body becomes tense and retreating.  That’s my fault.  Mine, not his.

The Relationship Rescue book is in my backpack.  I decide to take Dr. Phil’s advice.  I’m going to journal my emotions, then share whatever I write with Saman.

I take my notebook and sit crosslegged on the warm sand and close my eyes.  I’m supposed to begin with the first emotion that comes to mind.  My hand jerks.  When I open my eyes again, I’m dismayed by the scribbled English word that confronts me:

ANGRY

Not a complaint Saman wants to hear.  I have no right to be angry.  Even I know that.

I scratch out the word, trying to scratch out the emotion with it.  Let’s try this again, only in Farsi this time.  Shut eyes, deep breath, hand jerks in the opposite direction…

NAGANRI

I’m angry in both languages, both cultures.  Forget it.  This was a bad idea.  For today, at least.  Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow.

Stuffing the notebook into my backpack, I encounter the shreds of Nick’s business card.  His name galvanizes me.  What would I tell a stranger that I can’t tell my husband?  And just like that, the notebook is splayed across my lap again.  I begin scribbling a…poem?  No, poem isn’t the right word.  It’s a soul scraping that says everything about my predicament and nothing at all:

I see you in dirty laundry collages
dropped socks spell your name.

I taste you on tea cup rims
artificially sweetened.

I smell you in yellowing photos
quarantined in old frames.

I hear you in obedient refrains
and lonely dishwater solos.

I feel you in nothing boobs
in hipbones that slice.

you dare to ignore me?
fizzling
a lit fuse somewhere
in this deep down inside?

I know you, you stupid surrendering girl.

Iknowyou’reafraidofme.

I’m big and strong, I carry conclusions.
I’m angry, threatening, and I

LOOK

JUST

LIKE

YOU.

I stare at the page for a while.  I’m angry – at myself, for being this Nooshin.  That’s when I put my notebook away.  Journaling about my emotions is pointless anyway.  Even if I could find the right words to express myself, nothing is going to change.  Not where my husband is concerned.  Saman would read my soul scrapings with apprehension in his eyes.  All he wants from me is the same Nooshin he’s always had.  The dutiful wife.  The keeper of his house.  The mother of his future children.  And I don’t want to go back to being that Nooshin, back to Kansas City, back to him.