Blacklisted

Sometimes when we argue it feels like war - and with the news headlines what they are these days it's too easy to make the association.
There is a battle between Iran and America going on in a tiny apartment in India.
A battle over censorship; my husband doesn't want me to write about anything even remotely politically charged, at all, while we are there. No history of Iran, no reality of what it's like to be a woman there, nothing.
My immediate reaction is defensive, and a feeling of complete frustration.

It's impossible to file the section for 'can not write about' into my reality. It doesn't mesh with anything I know to be true - as an American this is something that just doesn't happen. It's like trying to force a puzzle piece.

I am travelling to the country I most want to write about, to put the experience of it all, from my own perspective, to paper - and I'm basically being told 'No.'

I wonder to myself what topics are allowable, and realize that if I accept this gag order, if for no other reason than to put an end to the battle, I won't be able to write about much. My experience there will be inextricably fused with the self I bring into it - but apparently there are some aspects of self not tolerated in Iran, and therefore in my expression of the experience of being there.
My strong opinions, my depth perception....none of it is allowed. I am essentially told to remain silent....because if I'm to write about being in Iran without opinion or genuine perception then what's the point to write at all?

I find it incredibly disappointing to be told I must find a way to write that doesn't honor the feelings and opinions I am sure to experience while I am there, but there seem to be underlying fears of repercussion in this issue.

It just doesn't seem possible to me that my writing would offend anyone, including the government of Iran.
I am as anti-Bush as I've ever been, never voted for the guy in the first place, I am sympathetic to Iran as a nation maltreated by the rest of the world, like the fat kid in class always is, regardless of how rich or intelligent he may be.
There is no part of me that wants to judge their laws, their customs, or their faith - to which I converted - but I do want to write about it, whatever it is.

I find it hard to believe that anyone reading what I think about anything might be so offended as to take me to prison, or take my husband or his family to prison. Some of my longest pieces are harshly anti-Bush yet no one is calling for my arrest or even threatening to censor me.
It's so twisted - a situation like that - where what I write must come through a careful wash first. I really can't imagine having to think so much about what I want to write before I write it. I've always been more stream-of-consciousness - not only with a pen but in my life in general.

It's the first time I'm really coming face to face with what it's like to be in Iran and I'm already in a space where I can't even write about it. And I'm not even there yet.