Ali Boozari Persian Book Design Program at the Library of Congress

Sometimes when you sign up for something beforehand you don’t always feel like going when the day arrives. So when the Library of Congress Persian Book lecture scheduled for Monday at four in the afternoon arrived, we were feeling lees motivated to drive in to town. But I refused to submit to that feeling and am so glad we decided to go in after all. We haven’t been in for a program for quite some time and I thought we could also see the Christmas tree in the great hall. Unfortunately the Jefferson Building is technically closed on Monday, but we were able to get in as I had an email invitation. The hallway to the beautiful meeting room still gets our attention. The presentation was good and the rare books were even more interesting. But the best part was that we got to see our old friend Hirad from the Middle Eastern Section - who I knew while working in the Library.  And then we stopped after the program to say hello to Ali Boozari - who is a resident fellow at the Kluge Center - doing research on the collections - and teaches at Tehran University. My husband graduated from Tehran University and we had a short but lovely conversation with him. The speaker’s father is also from the same city as my husband up north by the Caspian Sea. I’m just sorry we didn’t have more time to spend with him as it’s such a great opportunity to meet people from Iran, share stories, and speak a common language. He will be returning next month after a year here in DC. I would have loved to hear more about his experiences both here and there. I have been fortunate to have visited Iran twice and still have a nephew and his family there. So we were so glad we went to the program. It was just past sunset when we walked back to the car. It reminded us of the thirteen years we lived on Capitol Hill. I miss it for these reasons.