I'm going now, it's all very real

About a month and a half ago, I came back from New York City after having spent 5 weeks there, on pause. No work, no obligations, the city that never sleeps and a good friend was just what I needed to get my shit back together. I realise that I often lose my own path and find myself wondering again and again what I want to do, really. That trip made me realise many important things: first that I need to leave Beirut, at least for a while. Second that when I'm far away (i.e. 5,600 miles) I feel free from the family-related responsibilities that take up so much of my energy when I'm around. That my dream is still to write a book, and that I should just sit down and write it already. And that my life isn't going to change if I don't change it myself [basically, if I sit back and wait for change, well, it's never going to happen.]

So armed with all this new and wise information I've processed about my current situation, I decided to try my luck and move to New York. Note that I'm doing that with no real plan in sight, except for the hope to pitch some good stories and make some money working freelance, no money (well, that's a lie, a bit of money that could last me a month I guess) and no work permit (don't even get me started on that). Am I scared? I'm terrified. And absolutely excited about it.

Before I left New York at the end of November, I promised myself I was coming back. Even left a few sweaters at my friend's apartment (because they just wouldn't fit in my suitcase) and told everyone (and I mean everyone) that I was planning on moving back to New York in January. I told everyone so it would make it harder for me to back out on this decision. Because, as it happens, the more time I spend in this country, the more anxious I become about making the move.

Truth is, it's not that big of a risk. Worse comes to worst, I'll just pack it all up in a few months and fly my ass back here, at ground zero, where I suspect things will still be the same.

So two days ago, I received a payment which I had promised myself I would use to buy my ticket to New York. I didn't let myself spend a penny of it, I just immediately went online and picked a flight, return date back at the end of May. There we go. Paid. Done. I'm going now, it's all very real.

I should maybe have a farewell party, but I know I'll be back soon enough, we always do. Maybe I'll start a new blog when I get there, New York Rhapsodies or Rhapsodies in New York, don't know yet. The topic: Late 20s Lebanese writer decides to change her life and buys a ticket to New York with no plan and just enough savings to survive a month. She will crash on her gay best-friend's couch (for a little while, I promise!) and they will have lots of fun adventures to share with the world (I hope).

Writing this and posting it, just like telling everyone I was planning to move before I bought my ticket, also makes it more real for me. I'm doing it, even though I'm scared. I'm usually a planner, you see --my friends make fun of me because I need to make a list about everything and anything; it comforts me to know what's coming. Yet I also like adventure, and this is one I'm jumping at with both feet. Whatever happens, I hope I get good stories out of it. That's all that matters in the end.

little bits of happy

Maybe I'm feeling particularly sentimental because I'm leaving New York tomorrow, but I feel like writing this down.

I've had so many small bits of happiness in the last few weeks here, I had forgotten how much there is that is wonderful with the world. I should be more down, I guess, since I don't have a job to go back to and I just broke up with my boyfriend... But the truth is, I feel good.

Happiness isn't just about having a man in your life or having a great job and making lots of money. Turns out there are thousands of ways to feel bits of happiness.

For me, it comes with walking around the streets of New York and suddenly looking up, and for a second realizing the size of the world. It's spending a night with one of my best-friends playing like 12 year-olds making a music video for a Lady Gaga song and having so much fun doing it. Or going to a store and trying on a dress and feeling you look hot in it. It's going to Bikram Yoga when I haven't been in a year, and having the possibility to go any day I want (turns out, not that many!). It's listening to pandora (even though my friend says it's outdated and I should use spotify, I haven't been able to use pandora since 2008 and I've missed it!) and finding yourself dancing alone...

I'm going to be honest --because it's the whole point of this blog. Last year when I said goodbye on this blog, I thought I was moving on to bigger and better things. Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out the way I planned. I didn't get in the screenwriting program I applied to, I didn't move to Paris like planned, I broke up with my boyfriend and found myself lost and back at point zero. But very quickly, I decided to take my life in my own hands, and I bought a ticket to New York. Best decision I ever took. In Beirut, it was like I was waiting for my life to start. Like I was on pause and just watching the time pass by. But here, I feel alive. And suddenly, I feel like I have all my answers.

If I'm unhappy in Beirut, I should just move. Even if it seems complicated because of my Lebanese passport and visas and all the shit that comes with it, I have to just try. I realized that when the Polish housekeeper came over the other day: she doesn't speak a word of english, she wasn't as lucky as me in terms of education, she also isn't as lucky as me in terms of financially ability, and yet she is here. She tried and found a way to make it work. She took a risk; why can't I? People do it every day.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote in a post that I was going to start doing a lot more things for myself, and I've actually started doing it: Buy a dress that makes me look (and feel) sexy, even if it's outrageously expensive (I think of it as an investment in my self-esteem). Have entire days to myself, where I don't have to do anything I don't want to do, or see anyone I don't want to see. Dare to dye my hair kind of blond to see if they actually do have more fun.

And, best of all: I got an idea for a story. When I started Beirut Rhapsodies 3 years ago, I said it was my way of getting back into writing, because all I want to do is write a really good novel. And now, I finally feel like I have my story. I know exactly what I want to write about, and I can't wait to get started.

All this to say that sometimes things don't work out as we planned --but if we just open up, even a little, a whole new world of possibilities appears. Sometimes, you just have to take one big step, and the rest happens on its own. Like this quote from a book I'm reading: "Fret not where the road will take you. Instead, concentrate on the first step. Once you take that step let everything do what it naturally does and the rest will follow. Do not go with the flow. Be the flow." (Elif Shafak, 40 Rules of Love)

So here's what's next on my list: move to New York.

do a great deal of it

"You do get to a certain point in life where you have to realistically, I think, understand that the days are getting shorter, and you can't put things off thinking you'll get to them someday. If you really want to do them, you better do them. There are simply too many people getting sick, and sooner or later you will. So I'm very much a believer in knowing what it is that you love doing so you can do a great deal of it." Nora Ephron


Today Nora Ephron has died and you might not know who she is but you most definitely have seen her work. She wrote "When Harry met Sally" --need I say more? I, for one, admire this woman who is everything I want to be: a writer, a screenwriter, a journalist, an editor, a director... the only I would add to the list, for myself, would be actor. Otherwise, she had that life policy that I try to remember and apply, even though many a times I fail: know what you love doing so you can do a great deal of it. And if you love a lot things then you should do all of them. 


I find that even if we know that's the way we should live our lives, we tend to get caught up in the midst of bills and day-jobs and routines that sometimes make us forget. I know I forget to write all the time and when I remember, I'm too exhausted to do it. In the mean time though, life happens. Days pass by and there is no way we will ever get them back. So the only thing to do is get on that wheel and try, even if we fail. Even if we're scared. 


In her memory, here are some of my favorite quotes of her:

• "What failure of imagination had caused me to forget that life was full of other possibilities, including the possibility that eventually I would fall in love again" [Nora Ephron, I feel bad about my neck]

• "It’s always hard to remember love -years pass and you say to yourself, Was I really in love, or was I just kidding myself? Was I really in love, or was I just pretending he was the man of my dreams? Was I really in love, or was I just desperate?" [Nora Ephron, I feel bad about my neck]

• "Everybody dies. There's nothing you can do about it. Whether you eat six almonds a day. Whether or not you believe in God. (I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections)

• "You can't retrieve your life (unless you're on Wikipedia, in which case you can retrieve an inaccurate version of it).” [I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections]

• "Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim." — '96 Wellesley commencement address

flying solo

I have a fear of flying. It's something I can't control, I can't explain, and I can't get rid of. It wasn't always that way though. I used to fly all by myself ever since I was 7 years old. And I took 14 hour flights 4 times a year and I had no problemo.

But then one day, something happened: I got scared. It was a sudden realization of just how much life hangs by a thread and I'm not ready for that thread to break. I've seen death from many different angles and honestly, I don't want to experience any of it yet. There is so much to life that I haven't discovered, so much I still want to do, I definitely do not want to go down on a crashing plane. I know what everyone says: chances of dying in a car accident are like a million times higher, blablabla. But planes in specific scare me. When you're so many feet off the ground, completely and utterly without control on your own well-being with no way whatsoever to protect yourself, nothing makes me feel more vulnerable. Nothing, except of course life in general. Because even though I only get this sickening fear when I'm flying, the truth is, death is always beyond our control.

Now life, that's something we can choose, change, adapt and transform as we go.

I'm having breakfast in Rome this morning, and tonight, I will be dining in New York.

The last time I was in the city that never sleeps was 3 and half years ago, which seems like a lifetime away. I had packed up my bags and left behind 2 unforgettable years, a time when walking through Fifth Avenue, or Central Park, or near the Empire State building was just another walk I took everyday. Now I find myself filled with anguish, returning to this city I was so in love with as a different person. Maybe New York hasn't changed, but I certainly have. The last time I was there, I was 23 years-old. I was a journalist, fresh off Grad School, and the world was at my feet. I wanted to become the next Christiane Amanpour and use the Middle-East's fucked-up politics as my personal training ground. Then I made choices. Choices that you get to make even if they are sometimes dictated by things we can't control. I made it as a news anchor and head of my own news bulletin but I hated it and I quit my job and changed my career. Now I run an NGO, I write a blog, and in my free time I write and act for a TV/Web series. Basically I find myself nothing like the person I expected to be back then. And I know I'm at a crossroads once again, and that the choices I make in the coming few months may completely change the course of my life. Again. And that's okay. As long as I know I can control it, as long as these decisions are my own, then my life is my own.

I don't know what may happen in that flight I'm about to take (hopefully nothing because I'm just a paranoid freak with plane phobia) --it scares the shit out of me and I have to severely drug myself in order to survive it, but it is my choice to go. The way there might be scary as hell for me, but the destination it worth the risk.

I know they say "enjoy the journey, not the destination." I get it and it's true. I say it too sometimes. But not when I'm flying solo. 

save a life

Our lives are made up by a series of trivial little things.
We go to the bank and spent half an hour in a line waiting to cash a check or make a deposit. We run to the supermarket and we go down the list and go back and forth and in between the aisles and somehow always end up forgetting that one crucial thing. We to the gas station, and sometimes we sum up the energy to leave our car there to get itself washed. We go shopping. We buy presents for birthdays, for engagements, for weddings, for newborns. We go for lunch --because I came home starving and I couldn't believe there was Bazella, again. We spend money on things that make us happy, make us smile, make someone we love happy. We get our hair done, our nails painted, our eyebrows shaped. Then we go out for coffee. We read a book, browse the internet, watch a movie. I get upset because my sister wore my shoes, took the car, or is watching TV when I wanted to watch. We take a shower, sometimes a bath. I cringe when my dad asks me questions about my day. We go for dinner. We try to get a reservation at Skybar. We make a few phone calls, get the password, put some make-up on. We go for drinks. We wear high-heel shoes and start suffering within the hour, and why do we have to "suffer to be beautiful"? We flirt with a guy, we make-out with our boyfriend, we want to have sex but don't have a place to do it. We have a place to do it but we don't have condom. We have a condom but he doesn't want to wear it because you know how much it kills the pleasure.

They might be trivial things but they make-out our lives. Some people wake up in the morning and there are 30-thousand other people sleeping next to them. They have flies running up their nose and into their ears. They haven't taken a shower in weeks, because there isn't even water to drink. They have walked for 17 days with three kids on their back and a pregnant woman. They lost a child on the way, but they couldn't take his body with them because it slowed them down, so they buried their child in the desert and they were so dehydrated they couldn't shed a tear.They arrive at a refugee camp and there are 3-thousand other people who also just arrived and they wait, in turn for a ration of food, a drop of water. Everything trivial that they do is to survive.

So do something today. Save a life. It takes two minutes out of your time and don't you think that not getting your nails painted this week is worth saving a life?

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the shadows of loss

There's been a lot of loss these past few weeks. A friend from high-school who succumbed to a ravaging cancer after a year of courageous fighting. A friend who lost her father. Another who lost his mother. Makes me pause and think about what remains.

The first person I know who died, was my grandmother. I was nine years-old, and she was my favorite person in the world. I remember how she hid chocolates under her pillow, and I would sneak in and steal them. I remember her hoarse voice, her hugs, her pineapple cake. I remember sleeping next to her and feeling safe. And I remember how she loved me.

The thing about loss, is that it tells you what's real. When someone physically disappears from your life, your realize what this person really was through the memories he leaves behind. When my mother died, my brother was 7 years-old. He doesn't remember what job she had, how she dressed, or how she wore her hair. But he does remember that she used to take him fishing on the Manara, with makeshift fishing-rod she put together with string, a wooden stick, and a borrowed hook. My sister lost her best-friend when she was 17, and when she thinks about her, she talks about her adventurous spirit and their late nights of confidences. Not what grades she had in school or she wanted to study at university. My 11-year-old cousin died, less than two years ago, and everyone remembers his smile. His sisters remember his mischievous eyes, his friends remember the pranks he played. His father remembers his generous spirit, his mother remembers the feeling of holding him tight against her.

Everything that is important, remains. The courage of those who fought, the smiles, the kisses, the I-love-yous; the moments only you two shared, like laughing your head off because of an empty toothpaste --something no one else will ever understand, but that still makes you feel like you share a joke, from across heaven and earth.

We spend so much time on things that will never matter. We get upset about materialistic objects that in the big scheme of things have absolutely no value. And sometimes we neglect the only things we will be able to take with us --or leave behind. The things that, in the end, make us who we are. Maybe the best way to learn how to live life, is to learn from those who already lived.

the tumors of life

I wanted to write a love story today. Something that would make everyone smile for the new work week ahead. But I woke up this morning in sweats, after having spent the night having nightmarish dreams about having a tumor. The one word that sends shivers down my spine and makes me want to puke whenever I hear it. My second most hated word in any language, after cancer.

I remember the first time I heard it. I was nine years old and I heard the adults talking about it. I remember asking "can anyone catch it?" and they said yes, anyone could catch it and no one knew what it was from. I was scared shitless. So scared, in fact, that the word cancer stayed buried back in my mind for the next few years. Little did I know that this word would come to define the first quarter of my life. When I was 13, I wrote a book called "I Believe in Angels." It was about a sixteen year-old boy, dying from Cancer. It may seem odd for a 13-year-old girl to write a story with such drama --which at the time, I knew nothing about. I could only imagine what it was like for the boy to find out he was dying, for his friend to deal with the news while still being there to make him smile, and for his family to accept this tragedy. It was all made up in my mind, all my imagination.

I had no idea that three years later I would come to experience this word so close it would feel like a gun to my temple. When my mother got sick, at first, no one mentioned the scariest-word-in-the-world. It was "a mass" that she had to remove from her brain, and a "treatment" that would make her loose her hair. And then one day, I sat across from a therapist who asked me questions about my mother's illness, until she made me say the word. Worst moment of my life.

From then on, it was like living with a ticking-clock inside my stomach. I was afraid to find myself alone with my father because I was worried of what bad news he could tell me. I was too scared to look anyone in the eyes, because I didn't want to see the worry on their face. I was terrified of speaking to my mother, because I was too scared I would break-down and burst-out crying, when everyone specifically said no crying and no negative energy around her. It was exhausting.

When she died, we thought we buried Cancer with her. Never wanted to hear that word again. Ever. But then two years later we buried my grandmother with the same word. And I thought that must be it. And then, some odd years later, I fell in love and was happy and the word came back in my life. Again.

When my boyfriend looked at me and told me he had a tumor in his chest, with tears in his eyes, I became a rock. I couldn't even blink. I held my breath, afraid of what would happen if I lost control. This time, I wasn't going to burry anyone but that fucking word.

I was older now and it was different. No one was trying to protect me from the realities anymore, I had to protect him. I came to realize, very quickly, that this wasn't happening to me again, but rather, this was happening to him. And so he fought, and I fought with him, and I was happy that for once, Cancer was the one getting its butt kicked. And he did it. And last year like now, like this very week, we buried Cancer, on its own, hopefully for good. It wore us out, changed us forever, made us take different paths then we expected. But this morning when I woke up, all I could see was his face, that first day in the hospital, when they were wheeling him down to the biopsy. And all I could see was my mother, who put on a brave face, smiling at her three children, pretending that word hadn't just shook her whole world around. And all I could see was my grandmother, once the symbol of beauty and elegance, weak and ravaged by this savage disease.

But people fight this everyday, I've seen it. And I just wanted to write a tribute, to those who fought, those who lost, and those who will join the fight.

breaking away

Sometimes it feels like we're stuck in a bad relationship, a bad routine, a bad job, and we don't know how to break away. We have dreams and ambitions that we keep putting off because something or someone always gets in the way. It's easy to loose track of the things that really excite us, that would really make us happy, and just settle for easy, predictable, safe.
As we grow older, we get more scared. I guess it's the price of "life experience" and "responsibilities" and "acting like an adult." I am always trying to get back to that time when my dreams were so big I would drown myself in them, and just the fact that I had a dream place to evade to was amazing.
I got this book called "Creating Your Best Life" and it's all about how to put your goals and dreams, long-term or short-term, crazy or realistic, on paper. A bucket-list. 100 things you want to do in your life time. It's actually really hard to come up with. And there's a bit of everything in there, from writing a novel, to winning a Nobel prize, to swimming with dolphins or going to meditate at an Ashram in India. And it seems like a long shot, but last year, I crossed out four items off my bucket-list, and it was unexplainably satisfying.
We get stuck doing things we don't enjoy because we're too scared to go outside the familiar. Couples stay in bad relationships because they're afraid of being alone, of loosing the other's support, of never finding anyone else. I know I've done that. I got stuck in a relationship where I wasn't happy, where I felt more lonely than if I were to be alone, where the everyday struggle of thinking my relationship through had become exhausting. So why did I do it? I was settling. I was scared of the alternative. But once you break away and feel the freedom of having your whole life in front of you, then yes, it is scary, but it is also exciting. There is a world of possibilities that I had stopped seeing.
People get stuck in a job they hate, because they're afraid of being unemployed, of having to live without a dime, of falling off their career track. And it is scary, and it is hard to dump it all and start from scratch. But there are things we can do to prevent the really scary part. You can look for something else while you're still working. You can decide to stop postponing for next year, and make a decision before next months. It takes guts, but I think it pays off.
I've been putting off writing a book. I give myself all kinds of excuses --too much work, the routine sucks the creativity out of me, I don't have a quiet place to write, etc., etc., etc... So I started the blog to motivate me, and it worked, I now at least write twice per week, which is a lot more than I used to. But the point was to start me off and get me excited about working on a novel. And there are always new excuses, reasons why it can't be done, and truth is, it's all a question of discipline, of how much you want it.
So now i decided to stop postponing. I left the routine behind, got away from the city (and trust me, I'm a city girl, and I don't do well outside the city for very long), got myself a quiet place to get inspired, and write. So far, I got one page down. But I'm trying.
Sometimes we need to just turn our minds of, stop thinking about doing, and just do it. Just break away.