In "I Will Seize the Moment", the writer wonders which one is more important, "the beginning of a year or the end of another?" Should he be happy that 1388 (on the Persian solar calendar), with all its colorful events, is over? Should he hope that the New Year brings us color without repeating the same mistakes? "In either case, there is a negative feel to it. We are looking at a seemingly long span of time filled with bitter memories parading before our mind's eye."

But then, there is a negative feel to everything imaginable on this earth. The thing is, though, that the negative is so tied up with the positive that most of the time we unable to tell them apart. The writer of "I'll Stay in Tehran"has always hung out in the city for the spring holidays. He has savored the calm and the quiet. This year, though, he has a feeling that things will be different, "and I can’t say how it will be different. It is as if I am thrown into a different dimension of life. There is a mixture of anxiety and a bit of hope flowing within me."

Anxiety is tied to hope; without one you don't have the other. Conspicuously over the past nine months, Iranians across the globe and within the country have gone through a spectrum of emotions, ranging from exultant to disheartening. Sometimes the seeds of one is found inside the other, like love and suffocation in "Seasonal Cycle": "I feel like my eyes are swollen to the size of my head. I can hear the sound of his breaths. I open my eyes with great difficulty and he blows in the smoke of his cigarette and the stinging in my eyes slowly subsides. He puts the butt of his cigarette to my lips and again everywhere becomes light."

Love is tied to death. In "A Monthly Chronicle", the writer twice goes to the cemetery. Early in the year, in April 2009, she goes to Ebn Babviyeh, north of Tehran, "which is a magnificent cemetery." And, luckily, it has plenty of empty lots, though people have already purchased them. "But if I get to work and pass over the great beyond sooner, one of them may feel pity for a young woman and transfer her/his lot to me."The second time, she goes to Behesht Zahra, south of Tehran, "I will disown you," her mother tells her suddenly, "if I bury her there. She says that she hates the place." But they are going there to show their love for a young resident.

Lofty words are tied to crass ones. After a year of fasting from words, the writer of the two-titled -- the first "Untitled" -- piece tells us that she had planned to "write an ode to humanity, freedom, righteousness, which has always come out victorious at the end, shutting out bestiality, bondage and falsehood." But she had forgotten "that history is written by the victor, those whose might makes right, the same ones who have perpetrated this lie that victors are those in the right…." In the second --"And the Garden Is Slowly Loosing Its Green Memories" -- she accepts the neighbor's offer to buy her a box of violet flowers.

The failure to connect with love is love itself in "+=ـ-()×÷^٪﷼#@!", which is this year's musical Noruz gift to TehranAvenueThe beloved cannot be reached. Otherwise, the b/r/o/k/e/n stream of the c.o.n.n.e.c.t.i.o.n would make me suffer and the vibrrrrration of the handset of the beloved would her." visitor. "

"The green pastures" of social imaginary don't find their counterpart in the change of seasons. In "There Is Time Before the Snow Melts" the writer realizes that "there is time before our trays are filled with talk of Noruz." The article nevertheless manages to talk about Noruz, albeit in abstruse ways.

"Voeux de nouvelle an" is a meditation on how to come to terms with all that has happened in the past year. For the writer, a photograph has come to represent how she imagines the way to be, "et de l’amour comme seul réponse."

To save the world or to focus on little details of life, this is the question for the writer of "Year-End Resolution". When all channels, legal or otherwise, for working professionally are constricted, "I thought I’d give a shot at being a homemaker, cooking and cleaning, shopping, etc." But, she soon finds out "these are not easy chores. They just look easy. [Homemakers] make it look easy," she feels jealous for those "who don't feel the need to go after adventure and excitement. No, they are not after that kind of glory." Finally, though, "If you cannot breathe with your nose, you find a way to breath with your mouth," she comes up with a new project.

It is precisely "pressures, depression and hope in the past nine months [that] make this Noruz different and the coming year, in a way, more hopeful than the past." In fact, the word "hope" seems to be with the most frequent refrain in the writings of this Noruz, because, according to "For the Winters Gone By", "The past nine months have been educational for all of us -- a classroom where we went through a state of psychological and socio-political transformation."

In "Acousticization" we read of a personal achievement. For the writer, the question "is to achieve a balance so that all frequencies of sound are reflected uniformly, and in a proper amount." Being a sound recordist, he is using two rooms in his summerhouse to build a studio. This has become his main preoccupation last year and will remain so next. But, in a note, he likes to add: "Socially speaking, I am very happy about the events of the past year, and I feel very proud to be an Iranian."

In "The Spirit of the City" the writer reflects on the city that she grew up in, "These street, these roads and this city make us fall in love with them forever and there is no escape from this. You have to carry them with you. If you are within the city you will laugh, be mad, and stay. If you’re not, you will reminisce and want to come back."

That which is imposed on you, will have to be the source of your power and freedom. "You are not free not to be free," Jean Paul Sartre was fond of saying. Freedom will suffer setbacks and that's how it will make itself more attractive. The duality is inescapable. Let's end with the final sentences of "In Praise of Destruction for Noruz 1389":

"Let earthquake come for the New Year to come, any time it wants to, in high noon, in dead cold. When the dust settles, had we been saved, we would not be able not to be able. We would make love until the morning and we will tell stories to our children, whom we would raise on the rubbles, for them to build and make love, and for them not to get scared when the quake comes, because they will live on. You can be sure of that; just let it get destroyed, destroyed…."

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Graphic works of {Saleh Tasbihi} adorns the pages of TehranAvenue's Spring issue. Saleh was member of the board of many publications that are no longer in business and is the designer and operator of www.khazzeh.com. He has published a book of his drawings (The Gait of the Dead Man) and one of his short stories (The House to the Flood). A collection of his articles, Zibaishenashi-e Khoshunat ("The Aesthetics of Violence"), is ready for publication.

Spring photographs of {Bahar Dashtban} can be seen in Sidebox. Her eyes pick out, as always, the simple pleasures of living in the city.

The Noruz gift of music is by {Martin Shamoonpour} whose upcoming album, to be released by Hermes Records, is still in search of title. This music is combined with a text to make communication with "the [beloved] subscriber" a bit less stressful.