gathering flowers and carrying fire

I was only ten when the Tiananmen Square protests were splashed all over the television, but I remember it vividly, partially because my parents were so focused on it. Actually, it was mostly my father. My mother cared, certainly, but she didn't make as big a deal about it as my dad.

( ruminations on my father, and Tiananmen )

All of this is in my mind, as I watch events unfolding in Tehran; I'm tense, with hope and fear mixed. The students are so young, so hopeful and vulnerable. It's massed potential teetering at the edge of a cliff, in the form of human lives and human hearts, and no one can say which direction it will fall.