My First Nowruz Alone

Thoughts on intentional solitude

Nowruz Pirooz and Spring Equinox blessings to you, dear reader.

This is the first Nowruz I have awoken to an empty house. The first time I’ve built the haft seen altar alone without Isaac there to share in the ritual. The first time I have solo jumped over the fire on Chaharshanbeh Suri. For the past several years, Nowruz celebrations were a way for me to pass on to him what my elders have instilled in me, to stay connected to our heritage as diaspora Iranians, to keep a thousands year old tradition alive.

Nowruz is one of the world’s oldest, continuously observed festivals, spanning across three millennia without losing its significance within our culture. While many other ancient holidays have waned in observance, Nowruz has been kept alive through generations and across borders. Deeply rooted in Zoroastrianism and symbolism, the importance of these thirteen days of festivities has been ingrained in me since childhood, and when I became a mother, the torch was placed in my hands.

Now, as an empty nester, I am welcoming Nowruz alone for the first time ever. I video called my Baba in Iran and my sister and niece in Los Angeles. I texted cousins and aunties and uncles. I’ll see Isaac tomorrow in Humboldt, inshallah, but for today, it’s just me and the cat. Just me and the Ponderosa pines. Just me and the wild geese. Over the course of the last eight months, there have been so many “first times” of doing things with just me—I imagine, in this second half of life, I will encounter many more. My initial impulse is to be saddened by this, to bear the weight of this solitude with sorrow, to look through photos of Nowruz past and feel bereft here in my hermitage. And then I remember that I chose this. I wished for this. I willingly entered into a period of intentional solitude, and it isn’t lonely or sad: it’s expansive.