Lubnan Lebanon Libanus

Lebanon has disappeared among the sum of its parts. A mosaic that could, and should, bring us pride, lies today in a shambles, with no particular cohesive design. The dynamism of shifting parts has borne nothing but fuzzy, distorted, Picasso-like portraits that can only be understood by the artist, and frequently imbue drastically different meanings to the observer.

Something as simple as our national anthem, I feel, is often lost in translation. What is reciting it supposed to mean exactly? For some obscure reason, singing it always brings tears to my eyes. It also makes me feel guilty, as if I had fulfilled some national duty by its mere recital when there is so much real work to be done.

A trite American TV show kicks off with “Good Morning America”, and I think – that would never work here. An announcement like “Good Morning Lebanon” would certainly draw attention… as something odd and slightly alien. I mean, who do they mean exactly and what Lebanon do they speak of? And our conspiracy theory infested minds would wonder what political rhetoric the announcement fit into, or was trying to create. Couldn’t possibly be a call for a united identity, not after all the years where every political leader drilled into our heads that our versions of Lebanon are diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive.

It takes us a while to realize that there is no art or creativity in monochoromed canvases. Even if the palette consists of only one colour, the painting only becomes one if there is some variety in shades or textures. The little people, like you and me, realize this as we stare at paintings searching for ourselves. Sadly, those holding the paintbrushes remain stoically unimaginative, moving across any striking patches like a censor’s ugly black marker, because they cannot control what they do not understand.

I am holding onto my Lebanon, as I hope we all do, so that I am prepared when we finally get a turn to step up to the canvas.

Black

Another friend has passed away. As the third installment here in the relatively young age of my blog to mention death, I won’t go into any analysis or expression about it. What could I possibly add? Besides, I had only known Ibrahim for a few months, and what stays with me, what lingers like a bad taste in the pit of my stomache is how sudden it all was. How quickly he became a part of our days, and how he then abruptly left us as if in mid-sentence, or in Ibrahim’s case, in mid-life.

Having been struck by a number of losses recently, I found myself closing up to this loss, not wanting to feel it or empathize with his family. At least not as deeply as I usually do. This reflected itself in my resistance to wearing black, not in prolonged mourning which is unnecessary, but for any length of my day longer than the duration of the funeral. As a result, I ended up doing something I do not think I have ever done – I actually carried a change of clothing with me to work so that I could change into the appropriately black attire when it was time to make my way to the church, not a moment earlier. As someone who thrives on efficiency and multi-functional outfits, this was totally out of character for me.

I have come to detest black. With this comes a self-explanatory confession that I do not understand people who dress in black from head to toe for the purposes of fashion or to seem slimmer. I also don’t understand people who don it in mourning for periods that far far exceed their time of grief. The social purposes of that totally elude me. Which is ironic because one of the main reasons for which I now detest black is precisely for all its associations with times when I was in mourning. Though I always found it comforting in the first few days when I would feel that the black was sucking out my sadness and emptiness, this was always followed by a feeling of suffocating claustrophobia. No doubt reflections of my personal mourning process… and who would want to keep remembering what they were feeling then?

So, as I was saying, I hate black. Whereas classy in parts with splashes of pure, bright colour, I find it burdensome when displayed in continuous, uninterrupted form. It takes on a life of its own that I would rather put aside rather than be reminded of. If you’re thinking that it’s a life that I’ve actually created in my own perception, you’re absolutely right. But guess what – my blog, my irrational ramblings… deal with it!

Memory of Survival vs. Memory of Loss

The country is divided. Nothing new, but I am referring to yet another type of division – between those raring to go into war, and those desperately wanting to avoid it.

As these different opinions repeat themselves in various conversations, they have pushed me to wonder what really separates the two. Are they two faces of the same coin? Another glass half full / half empty dichotomy, essentially meaning that it’s the same situation viewed from two different perspectives? I’m not sure. But as I analysed this a little more closely, this is what I noticed –

I have dubbed those edging towards war as those feeding off memories of survival. The memories of survival seem to stem from pride; a pride that we have survived all this, and if need be, we can do it again. That is, the game hasn’t changed, the same tools of war are all we see, and we are ready to face them again. Pride also that we will not back down for the sake of what matters to us. We will put up with random militia raids, with shortages in power, water and food, we will home-school children, we will send our children abroad to safety as we move to different homes… In short, that we will survive an irrationally crazy situation if that is our only way out.

The memories of loss reflect on the same events, remember them as irrationally crazy, and wonder why we had to be put in that context to begin with. They realize that survival, valiant as it may have been, wasn’t a choice, it was a necessity. The memories of loss recognise the sacrifices; of days, lives or hopes; and shudder at the thought of having to live with that again. Shudder at the thought of having to live beyond that again; for the survival they remember extended past the ceasefire to the arduous task of piecing their lives together again when the guns were laid down.

I’m not sure if the proponents of this second group have identified different tools, if they have found the alternative to war. My own feeling is that they’re our only hope for finding one.

One last note that also came to mind – when speaking of the civil war, nobody seems forthcoming with memories of victory. Think maybe that’s a sign…

The New Internet Age of Passive Communication

There was a time when I wrote letters. I remember this well – the attention to my stationary, stickers to be used as a seal or just funky decoration, remembering to write “By Air Mail” to avoid confusion as to other possible methods of transport, taking care to ensure I write the address legibly (part of my paranoia that it will be sent to a different street… or continent!). This part was actually pure fun, which we then expanded on with what we placed inside. I once wrote a friend an entire letter on an airline barf bag, used every available surface area (external, of course). I wrote another as a spiral starting from the edge of a page, or as non-consecutive, but numbered, boxes… And if you think I have a twisted mind, let me point out that these methods were either copied or inspired from what others had done to me, which I suppose could also only mean that ‘birds of a feather flock together’.

But I digress as I wax and wane nostalgically like an old lady rocking on her porch, or Mediterranean veranda. The point is not only in the directed effort for individual lines of communication, but rather that we were aware of who we were communicating with and actively shared news and views with them. Each piece of communication was a little different, was not necessarily comprehensive as much as carrying what we most wanted to share with our correspondent at that time. Furthermore, receiving a letter frequently triggered a need for acknowledgement, leading to a response, and the cycle of communication maintained momentum.

The introduction of email facilitated this process in many ways. And with that grew the demand to communicate with more people, and at a quicker pace. Fortunately, email contained the tricks that allowed us to do this – copying and pasting parts written in one email into another, mass emails, one liners… It was all done in good faith, but communication started its slippery slide towards what would become more impersonal.

Today, we maintain blogs, have turned ‘facebooking’ into a verb, and seem to write as if to ourselves, while we lay back and passively expect others to read all about us. I don’t write this in criticism, which would be utterly hypocritical as I partake in both facilities. Rather, I point this out as I self-reflect on two realizations: (a) that I’m always pleasantly surprised by who does read all about me, compared to who I thought would, and (b) that I’m consistently missing out on communicating with friends I would have normally written to regularly who are, sadly, not blog surfers or facebookers. I suppose I’m writing this in part as confession, and in part as apology – I have slid down the easy path to passive communication, and not sure how to find my way out.

I’ll keep working on it… promise!

I Danced in Baalback

It wasn’t truly an intricate dance, but it was dabke. And it wasn’t around the Baalback ruins, or the temples that usually house great performances. Wasn’t exactly in front of the grand pillars that served as the backdrop of our annual dabke performances in school.

But it was in Baalback. And it was dabke. If you haven’t already guessed, the two go hand in hand in these parts.

And there was someone from the Hamieh family in attendance, which is coincidentally the same family as our late dabke teacher / trainer / wonderful man. I’m not sure why I found the incident so special, but I did. I suspect it was for the reasons that I’ve just rambled off, but I think also that the occasion was my momentary crashing of a dabke class in which a group of lovely women of all ages (and I mean ALL ages) were diligently learning their first steps. To find them there after emerging from a depressing meeting that was weighed down with a continuous series of miserable, hard facts about the impoverished situation of their region was … uplifting!

I can’t thank them enough for letting me partake…

I Will Not Let You In!

You may blacken my skies, cut off my streets, restrict the air that we breathe
But I will not let you in
You may make it impossible to plan, to look ahead hopefully, to look beyond our mere survival
But I will not let you in
You may continue to bubble underground, but despite you
Our children will be born and will grow in a country that we will continue to love
The flowers will bloom, trees will carry their leaves again, the earth will bear its fruits
And our sea will rock us into our usual therapeutic dance
Despite you, we will cook our traditional meals, celebrate our holidays with family and friends
We will get out of bed every morning, every day, and go about our work, sure as the sun rises and sets.

You will haunt us in our moments of rest or idle thought
You will infest our conversations, our jokes, our songs, our writings
But let me make this perfectly clear – though you may follow me like a shadow, WAR, I WILL NOT LET YOU IN!