New York and the Rays of Sunshine

I know it's been months --almost a year actually, but I woke up this morning and all I could think of was I need to write a blog post. So here it goes.

I woke up this morning in New York --the city I first fell in love with when I was 17 years old and made my very first visit to the United States. Since then, I visited New York countless times, lived there for two years and left it with regret. Today I find myself back here, and the feeling of walking down lafayette street on a magical fall morning is just as good as it was the first time, 11 years ago.

I already forgot all about the horrible plane delays, the missed connection, the fact that my suitcase didn't make it and I have been wearing the same clothes for 36 hours... Who cares? I am in Manhattan and the weather is at my absolute favorite: sunny and the perfect amount of cold. 7am and the streets were already alive, people walking their kids to school or walking themselves to work (how amazing to see people walk after so long in Beirut traffic) and I found myself just enjoying gazing at the activity on the street. Morning coffee at the corner barista, with the line of the usual customers ordering their usual cup of coffee, to each their own. There is something about that morning ritual which puts smile on my face. Not just the smell of coffee and the familiar interaction between the customers and their baristas but just the simple fact that people do that here: no one in Beirut stops around the corner for their morning coffee... it comes on a tray to your bed without having to even ask for it.

I stopped by Whole Foods and just enjoyed walking through the aisles of organic spreads, realizing that in Beirut we barely have a few shelves of bio products. I held onto the crispy craft grocery bag walking back home and it's not even 9 in the morning yet I'm having a wonderful day.

Why am I sharing all this? I've had a rough couple of months --not that we don't all go through bad phases but for me it was an especially tough time I was having with myself and I decided I needed a break. Destination New York because it's the one place in the world where I feel totally free. And because I have an amazing friend who is letting me crash his perfect lower east side apartment. I asked for a leave of absence from work --haven't had a break longer than 2 weeks in 7 years and now I am free for a whole month. Just wanted to take some distance and time, regain perspective and regroup my thoughts and plans. Sometimes to find your way back to yourself you need to get out of everything comfortable you know, out of the routine, far from the comfort zone --and just be able to enjoy the little rays of sunshine like New York in the fall, the smell of morning coffee, the noisy streets, and a craft bag of groceries.

feeding the status quo

I've been writing on this blog for over a year and a half, and sometimes I get terrified by the fact that I have nothing to say anymore. The truth is, when I began, I wanted to find a way to push my writing and get me to write a novel, which is basically my dream.

And I thought, "Beirut Rhapsodies," well that should be fun. I had a bunch of single friends who always had some kind of story about that girl or about that guy, I thought Beirut was this endless source of fun stories that I would always be able to incorporate in my blogs. I was wrong though. After a while, stories run dry.

The problem with this city is that we live in a box. As a person of a certain social class, it is very unlikely that you ever find yourself with people from different social backgrounds. It's not like in other big cities where anyone and everyone find each other uncomfortably close on a subway ride.

In the Beirut I live in, there are clear boundaries and there are walls closing in on us. Everywhere you go, you see the same faces, week after week, month after month, year after year. Someone told me the other day they went to White and "it was the exact same people sitting at the exact same tables" as last year, and that is a scary thought. But it's true. You go to any bar or night-club or rooftop bar --because frankly, there is not much else to do-- and you know exactly who to expect. And then you have the same conversations over and over again. And when you overhear someone else's conversation, you realize that they are talking about the same thing too.

As a writer, you get inspired by other people, by places and encounters. You feed off other people's conversations, you meet someone who will tell you a story, you see something that gives you an idea. Sometimes you just need to take a walk and look at things happening around you to get creative. Other times you just want to sit under a tree in a park and read a book to get your mind flowing. But here we have no parks. And if you take a walk in the street you spend half your time ignoring the idiotic sexual purrs of every other guy passing you by and the other half trying not to get run over. And although some people try, very hard to bring some culture to this country, by opening an art center or by throwing a film festival, it is very unlikely that it will get as much attention as a new fashionista clothing store, another Lebanese designs jewelry shop, or the latest bar in town.

This is what we do here: We take the status quo and we feed it, so that it becomes more snob and more blase, more induced in that heartbreaking comfort zone and more lazy, until we do nothing but try to make enough money to keep a lifestyle we're not sure we enjoy. Our lives revolve around relationships and jobs, and for many girls, about appearance and body image. It is what makes for most of our conversations, except on Sunday when we have a family lunch and someone has the grand idea to talk about politics.

And then we say we have the greatest country in the world. We can infamously "swim and ski" in the same day and the sun is out 9 months a year. But what's the point? We're so beyond closed up there are still people who decide to cross the street when the light turns green. And it's our own fault really. We find excuses for everything: We had 25 years of war goddammit. We need people of action in government in stead of a bunch of grumpy old men who want to settle their own personal scores but we're the ones who can't let go of them and keep them in office. We don't want to learn how to recycle or wear our seat-belts before more important things in the country are taken care of, because what's the point? And it's never, never our own fault.

The bigger problem is, we act the same way with our own lives. We drown in our own comfort zone, we stay safe, we get lazy. We complain but don't do anything about it, hoping someone else will. And secretly also hoping they wont, because change scares us and we're not sure we can handle it.

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. 

broken machines

"Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was meant to do... Maybe it's the same with people. If you lose your purpose... it's like you're broken." Brian Selznick, The invention of Hugo Cabret

Sometimes we feel like broken machines. Except that for machines, it’s straightforward: you know exactly what a clock is supposed to do, what a car was built for, what a microwave does. Machines have a clear purpose. And when they break, we just replace the defective parts.

People, now that’s a whole other ball game. Are we supposed to just know what our purpose is? I watched a very interesting video yesterday, which was an illustration of a lecture by Professor Renata Salecl. She was talking about the overwhelming anxiety created by the endless choices we have. I’ve written about this before, in the “Paradox of Freedom” [funnily enough, Prof. Salecl's lecture is called the Paradox of Choice]. I, for one, am the first to admit that the vast amount of choices available out there is paralyzing. I don’t know what to do with myself. And the mere idea of having one purpose and finding it –now that alone can leave you anxious for a lifetime. What if you spend your whole life looking for a purpose instead of living?

There is this idea that anyone can “make it.” That we can all become that one person who is the best –or at least who is famous for being good at that something. You can now be the unbelievably smart person who decided to create a twitter account for @AngiesRightLeg and have 50-thousand people following you overnight and journalists and bloggers mentioning you in every other article. A twitter account for @AngiesRightLeg. Now that’s purpose.

I have always been a victim of choice. When I was a child, even a teenager, I wanted to be an award-winning actress. I wanted to be famous. I wanted to walk down the red-carpet. And when I watch the Oscars every year, part of me still wants to be that. I look around at the crowd gathered, the Octavia Spencers and the Jean DuJardins, who last year were considered nobodys, suddenly becoming superstars. Anyone can make it, right? But what is it we want to make? I want to do humanitarian work. But I also want to be a writer. And I want to be an actress. And, one day, I want to be a mother. I want to live in Beirut. I want all the cliché advantages of having your family and friends close by, living an easier, bubbled life. And I want to live in Rome. Far away from inquisitive family members and in a vast, open culture. And I want to live in San Francisco. And in Thailand. And in Barcelona.

But now everyone has the same choice. You’ve got self-made men and women everywhere you look. You have a Masters degree and that’s good for you but there are hundreds of thousands of other people who have the same exact degree and the same qualifications and it’s up to you to put yourself out there and find your own unique little thing that will make you shine over everyone else. Or maybe it’s just a little bit of luck.

And then we wonder why so many marriages end in divorce, so many relationships end up in the gutter. To me it makes perfect sense. How can we actually expect anyone to stay in a committed relationship when you always have the choice to be with someone else, someone prettier, someone thinner, someone richer, someone just plain different. If you always have that choice, why would you settle?

And where does that leave us? Dissatisfied.

My Parisian told me yesterday: happiness shouldn’t be in a goal you set for yourself. It shouldn’t be achieved. It should be found in the moments you have all the time. In the lines of a good book, in a glass of good wine shared with friends, in a laugh, in a kiss, in a breathtaking scenery. Otherwise, there is no purpose at all.

There’s no point in thinking “I’ll be happy when I get a promotion,” “My life will make sense when I leave this country,” or “Things will be better once we get married or have a child.” Living in the idea of a future that could make us happier is not living. It’s waiting. And then "choice" has the opposite effect of what it was meant to be: we feel trapped. Just like Oscar Wilde said: “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

Beirut RATsodies: Raw Emotion

It's been a while since we've had the perspective of a guy around here. Someone who actually volunteered, without me having to beg him to write a few wise words for this blog. And I'm glad he did this because it's something I have to admit I never thought about. Girls complaining about the lack of men in Beirut is the ultimate topic of conversation we've all overdosed on. Yet here's something to feed your thoughts on --or are we too good to let go and use raw emotion? I like the way you think SmartRat*. 
[The Four Rats take offense when I label someone a Rat when he isn't one of the core. For the purpose of this blog, they're gonna have to oversee this offense and readers, please make note that this is not the work of one of the core Rats. Thank you.]

Beirut RATSodies: Raw Emotion

The other night I was getting drunk with two friends. As usual, they were complaining about the scarcity of men in this town. Trying to stay a little chirpy and up their morale, I tried to convince them that there must be hope. I looked around the bar and pointed at a few guys. After this little exercise failed, I quickly noticed the girl’s range of guys to look at was substantially smaller than the males is saw. They literally scanned the whole place in 1.4 seconds, when it took me a good minute to figure out whether one of those guys had potential. First I thought it must be a girl thing (they know what they want, what they look for etc…) but then I quickly realized that they had actually left out the guys working in the bar, which constituted about 40% of the males present. So here’s one of my biggest concern with the girls in Lebanon: They calculate. A lot. There's no room for raw emotion. To them, a guy working in a bar would NEVER make the cut, so there’s no point in even going there. 

I know were in a more traditional part of the world, and it is important not to bring home a bum who’s life plans are to live under a bridge. But at that moment in the bar, I was looking at a bunch of hardworking guys, that might or might not have quite interesting characters, with no chance in hell of ever dating one of my friends. It struck me as sad. Not in the “oh the world is such a sad place where a working guy cant get an upper class girl.” It was sad in a way that was more like an obstruction to the natural attraction process. 

Here’s what I mean. In western society, the image of the good-looking barman, construction worker, truck driver or what not has quite a different lure to women than it does here. Over there a guy like that can be attractive to women. Over here, he’s just: quote “niakkk!”. Now I know this probably has some socio-economic reasons in this part of the world, and that not all the girls here are like that, that it really depends on the situation etc etc. But bottom line is the chance of the average girl getting with a bartender here is probably 87 times lower than anywhere else. That sucks, especially for the bartenders. 

What this creates, I think, is this: the driving force behind a girl engaging in such a way abroad is raw sexual attraction. I think its very healthy. You find much less of that here. Our girls have been so brainwashed with the image of an ideal guy that will make their family, friends and finally them happy, that expectations are really too high and more importantly they are really anticipated. No chance is given to anything that doesn’t match the standards. Most physical encounters are calculated and little is left to a surrender of the flesh. I'm not saying the girls should all start acting like hoes and jump on whatever’s in front of them. But a little more ease in this domain would be appropriate. And the little ease that’s out there shouldn’t all be directed at the “perfect match” guys. 

By the way, I can vow for that. Many girls perceive me as coming from a wealthy background. And its gotten me much further in this city than it has in any other.

Of course its better if you end up dating a presentable guy from down the block whose family kind of looks like yours so that everyone gets along and your social status is maintained or improved. But this shouldn’t and can’t be the decisive factor if your looking for something real. Because odds are, that prince charming is not going to come to you on a silver platter. I do think he might come to some on a cheaper platter and some girls will be lucky to get the silver ones. But they cant ALL be silver.

I think western cultures are much healthier than we are in that way. Couples have more reasonable relationships based on real attraction there. Here, I feel a lot of girls mainly go for the guy that makes everybody else happy. And god forbid he s a foreigner!

Whats up with that? Lebanese girls never giving a foreign guy a chance? Every time my foreign friends (descent guys that are usually quite successful with girls) come to town they complain about how girls are so unapproachable or after a one night stand the girls act like they’ve never met the guy. I'm sure my friends are fine with that, but something’s messed up here no?

Wonder-Woman vs. Cinderella

We're modern women you and I.

We have careers to manage, or jobs to turn into careers. We love to surpass ourselves, act like wonder-woman and have everything under control. We are independent you see, a trait we learnt to develop and appreciate after all the hard work our grandmothers and great-grandmothers put in to get us that level of freedom. We want a man in our life but we don't need him.  I know how to work out the cables behind the TV and I know how to call a mechanic when my car's battery decide to suddenly die at the worst possible moment and I also know how to manage my paycheck at the end of the month and contrary to what men believe, not spend it all on shopping. We like to be sexy as opposed to sweet, powerful as opposed needy.

We know how to do it all -but we don't really want to. Because deep down, inside each one of us is a little girl that watched Disney movies growing up and dreamt of being Cinderella, the Little Mermaid, or Snow White. Princesses in a fairytale, with a charming prince by their side. Because even if you do know how to work out the cables behind the TV, it's so nice to pretend that you don't and let your man deal with it while you're cozy underneath your covers. We like that we're able to pay for our own meals and buy our own jewlery and spoil ourselves, but we also enjoy it when men spoil us.

We try to live in this modern world that expects of us to be self sufficient but we also have this innate desire to be taken care of.

And it translates into the type of men we're attracted to. I think it's all Disney's fault. That's who I'm blaming it on anyway. Girls have high expectations because we grew up watching Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. They make it seem like princes are running around every corner. Take the Little Mermaid, who gets out of the water once, just once: the first guy she meets on dry land is a prince. Even in Beauty and The Beast, the freakin beast is a prince. And the girls who grew up on those Disneys end up looking for their own version of Prince Charming. The guy who is from a good family, who has enough money to ensure we can live comfortably but also take those five trips a year and go shopping every Saturday. A guy who is attentive but not clingy, tender but courageous, romantic but not cheesy.

And then there are the girls who are even more screwed up. The ones whose favorites cartoons were Robin Hood, Aladdin and Lady and the Tramp. Those who want the prince to come in the form of a street stud. Now the guy we dream about is not really from a good family, but he has made it despite everything and he did it all by himself. He doesn't have any money but when you're with him he makes you feel like you don't ever need anything  --and he would move heaven and earth to get you whatever you want.

Some girls want to be escorted in Limousines, dine in the best restaurants, vacation in Cannes and have their own Yacht. And some girls want to get lost backpacking through Europe, end up on an island living in tents for a month, having him catch a fish to fry for dinner. 

Other girls (God help us) --well, we want both.

the paradox of freedom

"Better a mistress than a wife." Coco Chanel


Anyone who's ever watched an episode of Mad Men would probably agree. Being the wife was so boring --sitting at home tumbling her thumbs, smoking cigarette after cigarette until her husband came home from work. And every husband had a mistress, or five. For the mistress, the husband would cut work in the middle of the day; he would actually communicate, share his thoughts, connect. For the mistress, the husband would unleash the passion. But for the wife... well, she got the sleepy, tired husband, who made her feel like coming home was like walking into a cage. Well, that's what I got from Mad Men anyway.

Then I watched "Coco," the movie, a couple of nights ago, and the man Coco Chanel is in love with is set to marry someone else. He says marriage is like a business deal, has nothing to do with love. And she says "better a mistress than a wife." Made me think. The wife represents the commitment, the settled life, the family. Boring. And the mistress is forbidden excitement, a daily escape, the adventure. All those words that seem to define men's needs.

So at the beginning of the 20th century, marriage was a social contract and love was to be found in the form of an extra-curricular activity. By the 60s, marriage was halfway between love and financial statements, and passionate sex was to be found in a variety of mistresses. And now there's a new century in the works and it's a little harder to define the terms. Maybe it's because now, we want it all: we want it to be love at first sight, passionate and enticing, but we also want it to be a calculated connection, with a check-list of culture, education, social class, religion and nationality. We want the love to be so strong we could live on bread and water, but we also want to ensure that chalet in Faqra or those trips to Paris twice a year for fashion week. We want the picture-perfect family, with the dog and the back-yard, but we also want the constant adventure and excitement and freedom of taking off with no strings attached. In today's world, we've become demanding, unforgiving, and uncompromising. If we don't get what we want, we bail, because we only live once and we want it all.

I guess that's the paradox of freedom. People paid with their lives for the choices we get to make today, and although freedom is a beautiful thing, it is also exhausting. How do you make the right choice? Do you go with rational, or do you go with instinct? Do you play it safe or take a chance?

Can you be the wife and the mistress?