what we're leaving behind

Another day, another bomb.

This weekend it was all about the piles of trash that weren't picked up by Sukleen. Last week it was a tie between the EDL strike, the STL trial and a blog post by my colleague about how only Christians can save Lebanon. The week before it was also a bomb; or was it the week before that? And there was the Chattah assassination, and the Christmas and New Year traffic and reunions, and the amazing article by Fifi Abou Dib in L'Orient-LeJour describing exactly what it is that we keep losing, as Lebanese.

I'm leaving on Sunday, on a one-way ticket to New York; I don't have a job waiting for me, I'm not one of those lucky many to hold another nationality, I don't have a dad with unlimited money and I don't know what I'm really going to do there, but I know I can't stay here any longer.

And I know very well what I'm leaving behind. It's not the bombs --that are more present on my Facebook feed than in my reality. The bombs will come with me, because every time I hear there was in explosion in Beirut I will frantically try to call my family and friends to make sure they are all ok. It's not the lack of government, or the social segregation, or the power held by Hezbollah, or the sunni/chiite/orthodox/maronite/etc. bullshit that I could never wrap my head around, or the towers of cement growing like mushrooms in Beirut --none of this is what I'm going to miss. It'll all be here when I return, whenever that may be.

What I'm leaving behind is my sister, the person I love most in the world and who I wont be around for every day. I'm leaving my dad, my childhood home, and all the places where the memory of my mother is still alive. I'm leaving my friends, the friends I made when I was just a little girl, going to school in this very neighbourhood where I lived through all of my most important memories. What I'm leaving behind, what we are all leaving behind, is the potential for something great that will unfortunately never be. I have travelled a lot, met many different kinds of people. As a journalist, I've heard and told many stories. And I have yet to see families love each other as they do here; or groups of friends form ties that last longer than anywhere else; or a diversity that I really believe could've made us special in stead of hateful.

What we are all leaving behind are the brave. The young hopefuls who create LiveLoveBeirut to shout out the love; the heroes like Nidal and Kholoud who defy all odds and fight to marry civilly, and have the first secular baby in Lebanon; the activists who fight for children, for the poor, for the sick, for the environment, even though they get no help and no encouragement. And so we go; writers, filmmakers, designers, finance tycoons and doctors and whatever we may be. We go, and we come back for the people we've left behind. In the country we've lost.

it's your birthday, mom

Hey mom,

It's the 7th of January, 2014. Last time we celebrated together, it was 2001. Kind of crazy, huh? We had organised a surprise party for you, and I guess we all knew it would be your last. You never had big birthday parties as a kid --you always told me how your brother and sister both had birthdays in December, and then there was Christmas, and then New Years, and by the time your birthday came no one really had the energy to do anything, so it was called "eid el tlet baraneet" (the 3-hats party) because the only people there was you and your siblings.

I didn't always have presents for you; mostly drawings or cards or something I made myself. But I always had letters. And I figure I can still do that, write to you on your birthday.

You would've been 59 today. You never wanted us to know that, your real age, and for as long as I can remember you always turned 33 and that's how you'll always remain in my world. You would've been the proud mother of a 20-year-old son who is off to college in Montreal, studying environmental science and in love with sports and nature, just like you. I can imagine you two would have had a hell of a time exploring mountains and discussing global warming. You would've been the proud mother of a 24-year old daughter who is a graphic designer, just like you were, and who could've taught you how to do it all on photoshop (no, they don't use pencils and papers to draw logos anymore...).

I close my eyes, and I imagine I would have taken you out to lunch today, just like I did 13 years ago; and we would have talked about my plans, my wanting to move, the book I'm writing and why I keep getting my heart broken and you would've probably had some tough love in there for me to snap me back into place. Of course, I would've probably spent the entire time talking about me, because that's what kids do, right? Just like I'm doing now. It's your birthday, and all I can do is talk to you about myself.

I will take a moment and say something about you though. I found it in the letter I wrote you that last birthday you were still around. I wrote: "The only thing I can give you today that matters are my words. You will always be my mother. The years go by, things happen that we don't expect, and all the tears we cry wont change anything. So let's look at the world positively, isn't that what you always say?"
 It is what you always said. Even sick, even dying; and I will never forget that.

Happy birthday mom, wherever you are now.

sundays and oranges

“Someone has somewhere commented on the fact that millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon” Susan Ertz

I used to hate Sundays.

When I was younger, the year my mother died, I used to spend every Sunday alone. I remember the rain, and the gloominess around the house, the gray sky, the emptiness of the chair where mom sat for two months straight with that respirator thing next to her, and me just staring into the television, feeling sorry for myself. My father would go out with friends, taking my brother and my sister with him, but I would refuse to go. I would rather sit on my couch, stare into mom’s empty spot and cry myself for hours, filled with hatred and anger, wanting to scream but having no one there to hear me. Sundays were cruel.

I’d think about the time when my dad was still my hero. I was six or seven, we lived in Paris, and my brother wasn’t born yet. We would have McDonald’s on the Champs Elysees, and then my father would take me to the movies, and it was our special time for just the two of us. My mom would be with my sister, and I’m not sure what they used to do but I didn’t really care, I was the older one and my dad would let me pick whichever movie I wanted, and he always enjoyed it just as much as me. We used to be happy on Sundays.

And then Sundays became all about how empty my family was. Without my mom to hold us together, I could feel it all coming apart. I was sixteen and I had just lost my mother and I was angry and life was as gloomy as those Sunday skies in February.

Then Sundays started changing, with the seasons and the years. When I moved to New York, Sundays became my favorite day of the week. We would wake up late and head down to Soho for brunch, and it is on one of those lovely New York Sundays that I tasted Eggs Benedict for the first time in my life --what became one of my absolute favorite things to eat. 

When I moved back, Sundays turned sour again. I worked for a TV station, which meant that it was open seven days a week, and I worked the Sunday shift. And I did not like my job. And I was stuck behind my computer for seven hours in a gloomy office with no windows, eating Casper and Gambini's Santa Fe salad. The upside? I'd get a message from my entire family who would be gathered for lunch, saying they watched me give the 5 o'clock news. It felt good to know the only reason I went to work on Sundays was for my family to sit around and ouhhh and ahhh at me from 5 to 5.25pm. 

When I finally quit my job, I was so excited to have Sundays back in my life, that having lunch with my family was pure pleasure. I learnt how to actually appreciate it when my uncle and my dad would fight about politics, when my cousins would scream about who broke the computer, and when my aunt would serve us the most delicious meals we would have all week. 

And then, as the catalyst of most changes, the infamous breakup happened. And it was on a weekend. So that started a whole new tradition of me spending every possible minute at the Twins' house. One comforted me with his world-class scrambled-eggs, and the other listened to me whine for weeks. And months. The tradition of Sunday brunch with friends was finally installed. The sound of the Hyper Twin working away in his kitchen always brings a smile to my heart. I walk in and sure enough, there he is, hidden behind pots and pans and cutting boards, one eye on the boiling water, the other making sure he doesn’t chop off his finger along with the tomatoes. I put my bag down, take off my jacket, and before we even say hello, he starts giving me directions. "Start pressing the oranges. There are more of them in the fridge. We need at least thirty."Ah, the oranges. I get the same task every time. 

Now since I started working on a TV Series, Sundays have a whole new meaning. The alarm rings at 6, or even 5am sometimes. Then it's a myriad of things to do, actors who we need to get to the set in time; schedules we ned to follow, the lunch we have to make sure is here on time, the make-up for every actors, oh, and the actually acting...  We go home more tired from the weekend then from the week at work... But it's the kind of Sunday that mixes productivity, good company and fun. And that has to be the best kind of Sundays of all.

Now yesterday was a Sunday. I woke up with a kiss, went to brunch with my friends, talked about different TV opportunities with my TV peeps, had coffee with Classy, had a whatsapp group conversation with 5 friends who are in five different countries for about two hours (felt like we all went out for coffee), then had dinner with my family --finishing it all off with my grandmother's most famous dish and my ultimate favorite: horra2 osba3o. 

I guess I kinda' like Sundays now. 

it's a wrap!

I can't believe it's that time of the year again.

The lights are shining on every street in the country --it's not just green and red anymore, now it's purple, blue, yellow and pink. The songs are overtaking every FM station I have a hard time listening to on a normal day. We did the tree at home like we do every year, my sister, my brother and me, with the cheesiest Christmas Carols in the background because it's our tradition and it reminds me that even though the years go by, we always find ourselves once a year to do this together. Christmas had different meanings for me in the course of my relatively short life and I am surprised to discover a whole new feeling this year.

When I was a child Christmas was about presents and Santa. For the last ten Christmases, it's been about missing loved ones. But suddenly I feel like I might have grasped a new meaning to what this holiday is about, at least for me.

I feel profoundly lucky. I was just thinking that on Sunday, driving down from Bikfaya where I had a 48hour shoot this weekend. We barely got any sleep, were up on our feet in the freezing cold since 5.30AM and were shooting all day with our heels digging in the mud and our fingers turning blue. Yet this weekend was magical. The energy of people coming together to create something fun, even if it's hard work, and to smile and laugh and freeze while doing it made me realize that the single goal I had set for myself this year, I've actually reached: I found passion.

I smiled as I had that thought, driving down in the fog without my eyeglasses and with smudges on my windshield, feeling completely blinded. I smiled because I realized I am not waiting for anything to happen to me anymore: it's around me, all the time, and I feel it. I wake up in the morning and I can't wait to get started with my day because I have so many things that I want to do and people that I want to see and I know that I am lucky to feel that way. It didn't used to be like that. It used to be: I believe that I will do something fulfilling one day, and in the mean time I was filling the gaps. Now the days and the weeks and the months are all converging in one giant bubble of time. I don't stop and do nothing anymore, and when I do, I actually appreciate every second of nothingness, making it a special activity in and of itself.  I've learned how to appreciate time.

When I was younger, 10 or 11, I didn't really have friends to hang out with in school. I was bit shy, I didn't know how to impose myself, so I would hide out in the school library during recess, always finding comfort in my books. Then things changed, and I met the group of people I have been friends with ever since. I've always felt lucky to have them, and I thought I didn't really need other friends. I never really made an effort being social --who needs a million acquaintances anyway? Turns out I was wrong to be so closed-up to people for so many years. This year, I met new people every week, made a dozen of new friends, each of them unique in his own way and all of them important. And I've learned that everyone I meet can bring something good to my life.

And as family goes, I've never felt closer to them. It's true, we've had another loss this year, this month actually. But Saturday morning, as my aunt enters her third week as a widow, she will still get up and make "Shorbet el Eid," stuff the turkey and set-up the table. The Christmas tree will still be lit and the presents will still come, and the magic of Christmas will have to find us despite the sadness. This is what this holiday is about for me now: last year, I had a thought for all those who passed. All those who are gone and are around us in the form of memories and pictures --and I can't believe that another face is now behind a glass frame. But this year, I'm having a thought for the living. Spending our energy on ourselves and on our loved ones who are right here in front of us, because that is the way to go on, stay strong, and make those above us proud.

So here's a Xmas thought, for the living: Go do a random act of kindness. Be spontaneous, do something big, something small, to someone you know or a perfect stranger.

growin' up

My brother is 18 years old today and this is for him.

When he was born, I was 8 and we had just moved back from Paris to Beirut. It was 1993, still a city covered in the rust of war. We lived at my grandmother's, my little sister and me, and my mom couldn't leave the house because she was nine months pregnant and if the electricity cut off she'd have to walk up three floors.We'd pick up the phone and we'd have to wait patiently for the line to come; the only milk available was powdered Nido and I couldn't even stand the smell of it; and the only thing on TV were the local channels and "Mini Studio" was the only watchable show.

I remember when my mom taught me how to change his diapers and how he peed on her while we were changing him. I remember when she let a flock of his hair grow long at the back of his head. I remember when he was four years old and we teased him on how he had a big penis and he ran all over the house screaming and crying that no, no, he didn't have a big penis. I remember him in his superman costume that he'd wear as pajamas. It was a time when we had a full house, and we'd wake up Sunday morning, my sister, my brother and me and prepare breakfast for our parents. There was still five of us back then, coffee for two, pancakes for all.

Everything is different now. It's like we're on another planet living in a different dimension. The world changed for this little boy when he was seven years old and he lost his mother, but watching him changes my perspective of the world everyday. When she was no longer around, I would put him to bed every night and tell him stories about her so that he would never forget. We'd talk about all sorts of things before he'd go to sleep and once he told me "sometimes my penis wakes up before me" --and I thought it was the cutest and funniest way anyone has ever put it. It was at that time that we came up with Papadopoulos together, an inside joke that only a few will get. When I left for New York, he was still a little boy. Over the phone I would hear his voice change and barely recognized him when he picked up, and every time I would visit, I'd find him taller, with little hair starting to grow on his face. By the time I came back he was a fully grown teenager. He'd receive dozens of texts a day from a dozen different girls, all crazy in love with him. He is that guy, you see, the ones all the girls are in love with.

And today he's almost a man. The world he was born into --it doesn't exist anymore. What we've learnt along the way is that nothing is predictable and anything can happen. But what always remains, throughout, is the love that you can only share with your siblings. And when your brother tells you you're "the woman of my life," you know you've done something right.

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?

shared happiness

This weekend, my friend had a down that completely resonated with me. "I need a change" she said. And I knew exactly what she meant. Sometimes we really feel like we need a change --if only we knew what it was. The problem is that for most of us women, we get caught up in collective-living and completely forget to live for ourselves. So once we are left alone to embrace the freedom and joy of being utterly selfish, independent, and free to be whoever we want to be... we have no idea what to do.
I could be wrong, but it feels like men have a better grip on being themselves. Whether they are single or attached, they pretty much live their lives the way they want to, following that job in Costa Rica if that's what their career calls for, or climbing the seven summits if that's what their heart calls for.
Women do that too, but to a lesser extend... and with a lot more difficulty when they are attached. We tend to prioritize our relationship, because we think, after all, what is more important? To get that amazing job, or to be with the person you love? For my part, I tend to put more value on relationships (not just romantic) because I think at the end of the day, if I die tomorrow, it won't matter that I won an oscar or made the bestseller list --the only thing that will matter is what the people I love remember me for.
But I also think we need balance. Because we only live once, and life is short, we should enjoy it and do as many things we like as possible. And the truth is, even with all the love in the world, it's not smart to put all your eggs in one basket. Mothers who live for nothing but their children often feel useless and completely lonely once the kids are all grown up and have a life of their own. Women who spend their time making sure they are the perfect wife, get dumped, or their spouse dies, and suddenly they end up all alone. People you love are what is most important, but you need to love yourself as well, and we tend to forget that. We make sure everyone else get what they want but we neglect our own needs. And soon enough, we forget what those are.
My friend and I want to go on a great adventure. We want to do something we've never done before, be far away from everything we know, take a leap of faith and see where we land. It'll be good for us, and we won't be neglecting anyone in the process. Waiting for change will do nothing, we need to make change happen. There's an inspiring story called "Eat, Pray, Love" (read the book, don't see the movie) where a woman decides she needs a change, and embarks on a year of travel to rediscover herself. She lived the last few years of her life in a bad marriage where she totally lost her passion for life, and she needed to find it again. She goes to Italy to do nothing but enjoy the pleasures of food, then she goes to India to meditate and connect with her spirituality, and finally she ends the year in Bali, where she falls in love. I love that story because I relate to her completely. Waking up and realizing you have no passion is scary. Passion makes you feel alive, and that's how I want to feel.
But in that search, there is one thing we should always remember: "happiness is only worth it, if shared." (Christopher McCandless) 

xmas blues

The city is filled with lights and bumper to bumper traffic, holiday tunes are all over the radio, last minute gifts are being packed. And for some inexplicable reason, I'm getting the blues.
Not to be a grinch --but that wonderful joy that came with being a kid and waiting for Santa to come around on Christmas eve to distribute gifts and hear us sing "petit papa noel," it's gone now.
When we were children, Christmas was all about the presents. How many will be under the tree, did the letter to Santa arrive, am I getting everything I asked for?
Then as we get older, well, it's still about the presents. But it also becomes about family. You start to appreciate being around the people you love,  and although Christmas is just an excuse to get together, it has this sort of magical power that helps people mend tensions and brings everyone together. The airport is filled with people trying to get to their families after days of backed up flights and snowstorms, because everyone wants to get home before the turkey is out of the oven.
And as the years go by, it becomes about the people you miss. The faces that aren't around the table anymore, only around us, in picture frames. And although we miss them every day, somehow, on a day like Christmas, we miss them more.
And that's for the lucky ones. Others live through Christmas like they do on any other given day, in misery, without any food, in a refugee camp, or in a hospital. There are no presents and no families. No trees, no lights, no holiday tunes.
So here's a thought: for Christmas, say a prayer. For those we miss, and for those who miss out on everything.