‘Egg’ by Persia Bahmani

In Perth, I wrapped my egg in a pair of frilly white socks and hid it at the back of the wardrobe in the room I shared with my family. I would sneak it out from time to time, just to make sure it was still ok.

Persia Bahmani is an Iranian Australian, currently residing on the sacred lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people. Following a decade of pharmacy practice in Australia’s most remote communities, she now channels her efforts into Mettle, a social enterprise dedicated to empowering those affected by homelessness due to domestic and family violence.

As a child of the dysphoria, her every experience is steeped in longing, nostalgia and a profound sense of separation from root and self. Through writing and poetry, she embarks on an ongoing exploration of form, tenderness, and the tyranny of borders – seeking to understand what it means to come home to one’s self.

At eight, Persia immigrated to Australia with her family, clutching a boiled egg her grandmother gave her for the journey. It became her comfort during the confusing transition to a new life. In Perth, Persia hid the egg, wanting to protect it, even as it began to rot. This story is about that small egg, the quiet weight of family expectations, and the search for belonging in a new place.

Liked this story? Donate to help us support more storytellers like Persia here.

I sat at my desk and tried to write.

“Write what you know, write what is true, write to remember, to make sense of the past and maybe even the present.”

I repeated these words to myself until the enormity of the task fell away. Then I started to write.

I don’t know much, and my memory is blurry but here we go.

When I was 8 my family and I immigrated to Australia. My clearest memory of this time is of the night we left. I remember sleeping with my cousins in front of the fireplace, my aunty carefully dressing me in the dark. I remember it was winter when we left and that I loved the snow. I remember being excited because it was my first time on an airplane.

My grandmother gave me a boiled egg to eat on the flight, shell intact because I loved to peel eggs. I remember sitting on the plane, egg cupped in my little hands. For 13 hours I kept it close, I kept is safe. As excitement led to confusion, confusion to a hollow dread, I traced patterns with my fingertips on its smooth surface.

As the weeks passed, it began to rot and before long, the stench became over whelming.

I didn’t say a word as mum turned the room upside down. I was so ashamed of what I had done. More so, I was afraid of losing my egg. I thought about hiding it in another room or burying it in the garden but nowhere felt safe outside those four walls. I needed to protect it but I didn’t know how. Eventually, it was discovered. I braced for punishment, but no one said a word.

That festering egg, cradling all the feelings I had no language or space to express, was tossed into the wheelie bin. With nowhere left to put those feelings, I swallowed them whole.

Growing up an outsider in a strange new land, I learned to blend in at best or disappear at worst. It was only with my sister that I felt safe. She was and remains my best friend and anchor. My parents struggled to provide for us as they too grappled to adjust, break and reform. My dad, a celebrated engineer, drove a taxi to provide for us. My mum grieved in silence but did what she could to make us a home. There is a word in Farsi that has no equivalent in English – ghurbat is a sense of not being at home, of homesickness, exile, and estrangement. That’s where we were, that’s who we were – too lonely to be together but doing what we could.

My family expected great things from me and the pressure to succeed in their image left room for little else. I was to be a doctor, a leader and the point of all this suffering. So I wore this image like skin, like armour. But underneath it all, I was sad and very angry. The school psychologist blamed the perils of youth, psychiatrists blamed a fault in my biology. I was diagnosed and medicated routinely from age 13. I hurt myself in secret, found refuge in alcohol, drugs – the list goes on. But I was always a good student and my pseudo-identity held up.

That is until I failed to get into medical school. Despite having done exceptionally well, this failure felt absolute. My intellect and goals were all I had to define me, all I had to defend me. In my eyes there was no margin for error. No back up plan. Cracked and ashamed, I fell apart. Almost instinctively, I lost touch with the world in and around me. Most days I wasn’t even aware of feeling anything but the heaviness of my eyelids and legs, which is ironic since I weighed a meagre 45 kg. I moved out of home, slept all day, ate only when necessary and was nonverbal unless I was drunk or high. I just didn’t have the energy or will to be. I didn’t even know how.

I remember so little of that time but eventually, we all hit our rock bottom, and we often remember that.

My sister, 17 at the time, came to see me one day. She climbed through a window to let herself in. I didn’t hear her come in, but suddenly there she was and before I could hide, she grabbed my wrist with one hand and the pocketknife I was using with the other. She looked me square in the eyes and said, “I promise you every time you hurt yourself, I will do the same.” This moment and her words broke though. I didn’t care about myself – I hated everything about myself but I loved her more than anything and for that I had to change.

So I did the only thing I could conceive of at the time and decided to move back to Iran, ironically the only safe home I had ever known.

I landed in Tehran in November. It had snowed the day before.

I was to stay with my grandparents, haji baba and maman Nessa. As a kid my grandparents’ house was the centre of world. A home of marble tiles, stained glass windows and arched hallways adorned with persian rugs, each with a story of their own.

Every room held a soft memory – afternoon siestas, cherries and watermelon on the veranda, aunties gossiping into the night, birthday parties, Norouz, feasts of epic proportions, summer-long sleepovers. Their house was always a buzz with the comings and goings of aunties and cousins, distant relatives and those seeking counsel.

I had prepared myself for a big homecoming. I was so terrified of all the love and affection that I had no capacity to receive or return. When I arrived the house was warm and quiet. At the time it didn’t occur to me to question this silence. It didn’t occur to me that it was by careful and meticulous design. That in their infinite wisdom, my family knew that to begin again, we take rest.

Most days I slept till noon and spent countless hours watching fashion TV (when Hagi Baba wasn’t home) and nature documentaries (when he was). I had brought a whole suitcase of books with me which I devoured in no time. There was no booze or parties or friends to run away to. Sometimes, Maman Nessa would gently pull me into the kitchen and set me up with a task: peeling, chopping, jamming, plucking a chicken or two. She would tell me stories about their nomadic lives before the Revolution. I loved these stories that felt almost science fiction in their whimsy. Time felt different – it felt lofty and spacious.

My aunty Afu lived with my grandparents at the time. She was a clinical psychologist and worked tirelessly at a drug and alcohol clinic. She tried to spend time with me every day, encouraging me to talk, teaching me to meditate and breathe. She enrolled us both in aerobic dance classes and no matter how tired she was, come rain or blizzard, she would drag me there twice a week. My other aunty Parivash, who is as close to a saint as any living human can be, came to stay with us for a month. There was not a day that she didn’t rub oil into my skin or lift my hair into a bowl of some kind of elixir. She had such a capacity for delight and even with all the hardships she had endured, I can’t recall a single room she didn’t light up with her presence. I owe so much of my own capacity to bear witness to the silver linings in life to her. I allowed myself to be held by these women, allowed myself to be led by them and leaned into peace without any expectations.

In Iran, the bakeries open twice a day at 6 am and 4 pm, dotted around every neighbourhood, each devoted to making one type of bread. As a child, I loved the ritual of waking with the birds, lining up with Hagi Baba to the savoury aromas of rising dough, caramelized crusts and toasted sesame. We would carry them home wrapped in newspaper, tearing at the edges, careful to dodge the steam as we broke through the crust.

But I wasn’t that child anymore. Depression had so immobilized me that I had lost the ability to care or feel anything, so isolated that I wasn’t even aware of the scent or taste of bread.

Yet one morning, the aroma of fresh bread and strong black tea brewing on the stove got me out of bed. I still remember Hagi babas surprise at seeing me in the kitchen before noon. Eyes smiling, wool hunting cap still tied under his chin, he set me a place at the table. It wasn’t long before my other senses came back to me – the sharp and salty creaminess of feta, the tenderness of herbs, the sounds of the street coming in through the window. I went to bed with an appetite for the day to come. Eventually I started to get up early to buy our morning bread, holding the loaves close to my chest, breathing in a joy I had forgotten.

It was in this cocoon of care my callous began to soften. I felt safe and free to explore all the big feelings I had swallowed to survive. I had the will and courage to start therapy and be a participant in my own life. The world opened up to me. It started to hold me in its gentle gaze, no longer coming at me but in conversation with me. I felt the sun’s warmth, watched as it gave life back to the earth and I felt a part of it all.

I still struggle with depression. I still feel that little egg lodged in my throat from time to time. Sometimes I have to work so hard against my grain to see the world for what it is, to read between the lines and stay in the conversation.

There are times when it feels impossible to keep going but in those moments, I remind myself that what is needed is patience, grace and time. I remind myself to slow down, watch without judgment and show myself the same gentle encouragement and warmth that allowed me to begin again all those years ago. I remind myself that I can’t do it alone and I don’t have to. While the places and people I have spoken of have changed beyond recognition, what I felt and learned remain my compass, and my family, friends and community are who hold me today. And I them.

This story and corresponding images have been licensed to the Centre for Stories. For reproduction and distribution of this story/image please contact the Centre for Stories.

This story was published on 14 October 2024.