Sounds from a Beirut Café

Sunday evening and I find myself in a bustling Beirut café. I guess many people had my same idea of winding down this long Easter weekend in public rather than in private. I believe it is also related to the gust of gloriously warm Spring weather that now makes our indoor abodes, our warm comfort zone throughout this winter, a place we’d like to distance ourselves from.

The sounds certainly reflect it…
The music playing overhead is a vivacious Cuban band, and cheerful banter emanating from the tables seems to fit right in. We’ve got it all here – young and younger (!) single sex and mixed groups catching up, couples holed up in corners, and the random stray table with our new age couple: an individual and his/her laptop (present company included). Quite simply, you walk in and everything says: whatever fraction or multiple you are, we have a place for you here. Beirut streets and cafes have always been generous that way, and, not to belittle the gracious shelter from cold winter nights, I actually never appreciate them more than when they offer this private/public, indoor/outdoor space…

There’s a free table waiting…

Nostalgia

Another email arrived with photos of our lovely little country, in which the sender had insightfully pointed out “isn’t it interesting how we are nostalgic for Lebanon even though we’re living in it?”

How true. And what an appropriate observation to accompany the umpteenth email within the span of a few months that has been circulating with photos of Lebanon in the snow, Lebanon in the 1950s, Lebanon’s bewitching nature, Lebanon’s artisans and artists, and so on. We’re living right in the heart of the country, and we miss it. How did we become so estranged?

I’m not sure if I can, or need to, explain any of this. Think I'll just leave it here for now - the topic will no doubt come up again in other posts...

Neither Here Nor There

I went away for a few days on a business trip, the type of short and guilt-free getaway that I have come to relish as a brief escape from our chaotic days in Beirut. I must have been carrying with me much more than my little destination city could have handled, because instead of experiencing any detached escape, I found myself suspended between the two cities and continuously disoriented.

For all our capacities for worldly adaptation, our endemic status quo has imbued us with traits similar to war veterans or asylum inmates. Perhaps, to be fair, I shouldn’t assume that my compatriots feel as I do and specify that what I am describing here is how I feel. Or at least how I felt during three days when I was almost stepping outside myself to socialize ‘normally’ and find semi-objective, cryptic responses to enquiries about how Lebanon is doing. I felt like I was learning to speak again, drawing an utter blank when the questions were posed. It was like having a relative who is seriously ill, you can never stop thinking of them as you go about your day, and you’re not sure whether to burden others with your concern when, for all practical purposes, they are just being polite and considerate. After all, how could they understand how you’re feeling, or how this is affecting you, when you haven’t quite figured that out yourself? Their positive part is to encourage you to keep your chin up, your hopes high, and bravely stride through it all. I didn’t want to disappoint, so I reacted appropriately. Perhaps I also found some comfort in the familiarity of that role. Perhaps I found the suggested braveness somewhat empowering. That is, until I would walk out of that conversational bubble to find my reality unchanged.

I wondered if others could see the heavy cloud following me around like a balloon tied to my finger, sometimes high, sometimes low, but never too far behind. To resent the balloon implies rejecting your sick relative. To accept it is to concede that your relative may never be cured. You’re damned both ways and find yourself, once again, neither here nor there…