demi-notes on Beirut
Beirut, January 23, 2018
I realised, somewhere between a chopped dead tree and an empty land locked away by rusting iron gates, home to an old home, presumably, torn down for money, evidently, that I had left my journal at home.
I was erring without aim.
In retrospect, I wish I had had my journal on me because I feel like Beirut is soon to be a thing of the past. And now, more than ever, I'm anxious to record walking through these damp, worn out streets, flecked with old men, young men, men, plastic toy shops, bakeries with terrible signages, grocery shops with discarded vegetables leaves on the sidewalk, exhaust fumes, and today, occasionally, strong, cold-ish wind.
In a month's time, I leave to be in Paris for a month. A month to measure time. Time has been on a steady run, which improves in speed as days go by. Muchly detrimental to my mental health and sense of orientation in terms of Life.
My (brand new) car has met a saddening fate, in fostering much water during previous storms, whereby a puddle has been discovered in the spare tyre hole, and the backbench has soaked up all the water, the way obnoxious instagrammers on the beach write the ever creative caption about soaking up the sun. So, it is in the repair shop, for the second time in two weeks. As such, I am carless. And careless. But carless for now.
Also, a certain familiar anxiety has begun to creep up and settle in, nestling its head comfortably between my future, and what I am doing about it. Nothing, so far. There is a sense of missing something. A solitude that I do not wish to partner up with a longing for love at the moment. In a sense, I have decided to let go of these longings that end up replacing my quest for "finding myself." I loathe writing this expression, which I find both a cliché and a gigantic load of nonsense. I suppose what I mean, is that I am looking for a way to write, for independence, for that ever-elusive feeling that things will one day make sense and fall into place.
I have not gone on any romantic quests of late. If anything, I have turned my back irrationally on proper nice people, receiving many condescending "but if you don't try, you can't know," and "you can't decide if you like a person without knowing them first" type comments. And while all of these comments are true, I am satisfied with my unreasonable decision to abandon all interested parties, and store them in a nice little box in the past.
I have come to accept, I think, the strange habits of love that have punctuated my life thus far. I find it incredibly difficult to picture myself being loved by a person I want to be with. Sometimes I think: must I give myself recklessly to the only person who shows interest, fearful of ending up alone? Questions, questions. Who knows? I may look back on this and feel extreme pity and shame. But I don't see why I should feel any future pity at this particular topic, which I've always found at once frustrating and a source of inconsolable sadness. This is what my life looks like.
So I attempt to forget love, for now. And instead, funnel my energy into writing.
Beirut has uneven sidewalks. This comes to my attention every time I attempt to employ them for walking. It doesn't do to walk in Beirut remembering you grew up in Beirut. It doesn't help to feel exasperated at the lack of a pedestrian space, or at the street interrupted by a heavy truck parked in the middle of it, being used for work on what looks to be a construction site. This construction site, this area, you realise does indeed look emptier than usual. But what was there before they tore it down? You can't remember, and you are angry, because you should have known, should have spoken up about it. Should have prevented the destruction from happening. But all the lobby in the world seems to fall short of power in this particular Lebanese municipality. This is the second exasperating thing in Beirut (an item, on a seemingly endless list). Nobody listens. Those who control it see it not as Beirut, but as an open field, fertile for construction, real estate, money. Our voices, rebellious, are collected and dumped in the town bin, unrecycled. Those in power have inured us to the disappointing reality that heritage does not matter in Beirut. (sidenote: I am using "inure" for the first time and I'm not sure whether I'm using it right.)
Old houses, which once were new, which once were perhaps built on the remains of older houses, will continue to fall down. In Beirut, very little proof remains of the Ottoman/French erstwhile existence many are desperate to hold on to. Time walks on and so do we. Useless to think we can attach ourselves to stones or prevent their destruction from happening. Stones eventually fall down, like us, living, fleshy statues who pass onto the otherworld. Or neverwold?
Walking past one empty construction field onto the next, I realised that only a few years will have wiped out the remaining old, war-studded houses of Beirut. And somehow, I thought: it's okay. It's okay because at the heart of the city is its people, ever changing, ever moving. Nothing is fixed, not even a building. So in a sense, Beirut being ugly is okay. How can we be sure these new ugly buildings will remain there forever anyway? They probably won't.
It helps, to pretend you are foreigner, devouring these streets and all their faultiness with hungry new eyes, forgiving eyes that take its chaos for charm, its destruction for beauty.
A tailor's storefront had the following signage: "We repair clothes in a different shop." I'm not sure if this was the exact signage sitting at the bottom against the glass. But it was something like it and it made me smile. Right next to this place, a self-service launderette (very seldom encountered in Beirut, as far as I can tell, but I can be wrong) smelled like powder detergent, clean clothes. Then, there's the smell of freshly ground coffee here, vestiges of Christmas and Ramadan decorations in letterings on the glass, in lanterns suspended in a zigzag of ropes in the middle of the street there. Unpleasant shoes on display, the heeled sneakers sort, gathering dust and grime, piled on cardboard boxes. Shoes, frankly, that Isabel Marant never should have designed in the first place, not knowing they will one day derive into the atrocities I encountered on the street yesterday. (I acknowledge that this comment is subjective.) Men. I mentioned that before. But the streets are replete with men, old, young, idle. Women, you see them sitting behind counters in shops sometimes, or pass by you on their way somewhere, a child in tow. But you will never find a woman sitting on a plastic chair on the sidewalk, engaging in voyeuristic activities. Those activities are solely reserved for men.
In the end, I realised, I like Beirut. Despite profoundly disliking it. I like this place which seems bleak and car-filled, but is deeply filled with emotion and despair. A perpetual nostalgia hangs in the air, for a time that very few of us experienced. We survive, we do the things we do, everyday, not minding that our car is double parked. We squeeze ourselves on our motorbike between a narrow passage -- made by two cars eagerly waiting on the zebra crossing reserved for pedestrians for the light to turn red -- to deliver Shawarma sandwiches with extra garlic. We go up to the Mosque to pray in a white tunic, an instant coffee in hand, purchased from the tiny kiosk you can walk past and not even realise was there. We sit in car repair shops and wait for customers. We have become old a cane is now necessary. And a hat, armour from the cold wind. We bike to cheap-paying jobs, we deliver plastic bags filled to the brim with groceries in exchange for a thousand Lebanese pound note. We arrive at casual cafés swathed in perfume and expensive clothes. Some of us read a book, some converse. We give the key to our expensive big car to the valet, the man employed to park cars. Outside areas of interest/restaurants/pubs, cars have compiled to form an intricate tetris game. We step out of our seat like royalty, like legends, and walk into the restaurant with our long, perfect curls and fur (faux or not) coats and gel, and the wallet/cigarette box combo. Hoping to see and to be seen. The cat in the garbage bin jumps and crosses the street just in time to miss the speeding car.
I realise this portrait of Beirut lacks in details. I think I will engage myself in observational work on Beirut. After all, Beirut seems to run on the energy of looking, being seen. Men in plastic chairs on the sidewalk, women at $500 reservation nightclubs. Those who look, and those who seek to be seen. Perhaps this might be inspiring in some way.
While I do not condone everything described before, it isn't difficult to realise there isn't much I can change about it. To accept is to be at peace.
The walk ended at a café with colourful chairs, set in an old house and its backyard. I read John Irving, listened to classical music in an attempt to shut out the loud American voices around me. Mum joined me and we talked for a bit, then returned home. At night, I was still awake at 02:00, for a lousy fit of coughing seized me. The wind whistled and the rain tapped its furious fingers and I finally fell asleep.
I realised, somewhere between a chopped dead tree and an empty land locked away by rusting iron gates, home to an old home, presumably, torn down for money, evidently, that I had left my journal at home.
I was erring without aim.
In retrospect, I wish I had had my journal on me because I feel like Beirut is soon to be a thing of the past. And now, more than ever, I'm anxious to record walking through these damp, worn out streets, flecked with old men, young men, men, plastic toy shops, bakeries with terrible signages, grocery shops with discarded vegetables leaves on the sidewalk, exhaust fumes, and today, occasionally, strong, cold-ish wind.
In a month's time, I leave to be in Paris for a month. A month to measure time. Time has been on a steady run, which improves in speed as days go by. Muchly detrimental to my mental health and sense of orientation in terms of Life.
My (brand new) car has met a saddening fate, in fostering much water during previous storms, whereby a puddle has been discovered in the spare tyre hole, and the backbench has soaked up all the water, the way obnoxious instagrammers on the beach write the ever creative caption about soaking up the sun. So, it is in the repair shop, for the second time in two weeks. As such, I am carless. And careless. But carless for now.
Also, a certain familiar anxiety has begun to creep up and settle in, nestling its head comfortably between my future, and what I am doing about it. Nothing, so far. There is a sense of missing something. A solitude that I do not wish to partner up with a longing for love at the moment. In a sense, I have decided to let go of these longings that end up replacing my quest for "finding myself." I loathe writing this expression, which I find both a cliché and a gigantic load of nonsense. I suppose what I mean, is that I am looking for a way to write, for independence, for that ever-elusive feeling that things will one day make sense and fall into place.
I have not gone on any romantic quests of late. If anything, I have turned my back irrationally on proper nice people, receiving many condescending "but if you don't try, you can't know," and "you can't decide if you like a person without knowing them first" type comments. And while all of these comments are true, I am satisfied with my unreasonable decision to abandon all interested parties, and store them in a nice little box in the past.
I have come to accept, I think, the strange habits of love that have punctuated my life thus far. I find it incredibly difficult to picture myself being loved by a person I want to be with. Sometimes I think: must I give myself recklessly to the only person who shows interest, fearful of ending up alone? Questions, questions. Who knows? I may look back on this and feel extreme pity and shame. But I don't see why I should feel any future pity at this particular topic, which I've always found at once frustrating and a source of inconsolable sadness. This is what my life looks like.
So I attempt to forget love, for now. And instead, funnel my energy into writing.
Beirut has uneven sidewalks. This comes to my attention every time I attempt to employ them for walking. It doesn't do to walk in Beirut remembering you grew up in Beirut. It doesn't help to feel exasperated at the lack of a pedestrian space, or at the street interrupted by a heavy truck parked in the middle of it, being used for work on what looks to be a construction site. This construction site, this area, you realise does indeed look emptier than usual. But what was there before they tore it down? You can't remember, and you are angry, because you should have known, should have spoken up about it. Should have prevented the destruction from happening. But all the lobby in the world seems to fall short of power in this particular Lebanese municipality. This is the second exasperating thing in Beirut (an item, on a seemingly endless list). Nobody listens. Those who control it see it not as Beirut, but as an open field, fertile for construction, real estate, money. Our voices, rebellious, are collected and dumped in the town bin, unrecycled. Those in power have inured us to the disappointing reality that heritage does not matter in Beirut. (sidenote: I am using "inure" for the first time and I'm not sure whether I'm using it right.)
Old houses, which once were new, which once were perhaps built on the remains of older houses, will continue to fall down. In Beirut, very little proof remains of the Ottoman/French erstwhile existence many are desperate to hold on to. Time walks on and so do we. Useless to think we can attach ourselves to stones or prevent their destruction from happening. Stones eventually fall down, like us, living, fleshy statues who pass onto the otherworld. Or neverwold?
Walking past one empty construction field onto the next, I realised that only a few years will have wiped out the remaining old, war-studded houses of Beirut. And somehow, I thought: it's okay. It's okay because at the heart of the city is its people, ever changing, ever moving. Nothing is fixed, not even a building. So in a sense, Beirut being ugly is okay. How can we be sure these new ugly buildings will remain there forever anyway? They probably won't.
It helps, to pretend you are foreigner, devouring these streets and all their faultiness with hungry new eyes, forgiving eyes that take its chaos for charm, its destruction for beauty.
A tailor's storefront had the following signage: "We repair clothes in a different shop." I'm not sure if this was the exact signage sitting at the bottom against the glass. But it was something like it and it made me smile. Right next to this place, a self-service launderette (very seldom encountered in Beirut, as far as I can tell, but I can be wrong) smelled like powder detergent, clean clothes. Then, there's the smell of freshly ground coffee here, vestiges of Christmas and Ramadan decorations in letterings on the glass, in lanterns suspended in a zigzag of ropes in the middle of the street there. Unpleasant shoes on display, the heeled sneakers sort, gathering dust and grime, piled on cardboard boxes. Shoes, frankly, that Isabel Marant never should have designed in the first place, not knowing they will one day derive into the atrocities I encountered on the street yesterday. (I acknowledge that this comment is subjective.) Men. I mentioned that before. But the streets are replete with men, old, young, idle. Women, you see them sitting behind counters in shops sometimes, or pass by you on their way somewhere, a child in tow. But you will never find a woman sitting on a plastic chair on the sidewalk, engaging in voyeuristic activities. Those activities are solely reserved for men.
In the end, I realised, I like Beirut. Despite profoundly disliking it. I like this place which seems bleak and car-filled, but is deeply filled with emotion and despair. A perpetual nostalgia hangs in the air, for a time that very few of us experienced. We survive, we do the things we do, everyday, not minding that our car is double parked. We squeeze ourselves on our motorbike between a narrow passage -- made by two cars eagerly waiting on the zebra crossing reserved for pedestrians for the light to turn red -- to deliver Shawarma sandwiches with extra garlic. We go up to the Mosque to pray in a white tunic, an instant coffee in hand, purchased from the tiny kiosk you can walk past and not even realise was there. We sit in car repair shops and wait for customers. We have become old a cane is now necessary. And a hat, armour from the cold wind. We bike to cheap-paying jobs, we deliver plastic bags filled to the brim with groceries in exchange for a thousand Lebanese pound note. We arrive at casual cafés swathed in perfume and expensive clothes. Some of us read a book, some converse. We give the key to our expensive big car to the valet, the man employed to park cars. Outside areas of interest/restaurants/pubs, cars have compiled to form an intricate tetris game. We step out of our seat like royalty, like legends, and walk into the restaurant with our long, perfect curls and fur (faux or not) coats and gel, and the wallet/cigarette box combo. Hoping to see and to be seen. The cat in the garbage bin jumps and crosses the street just in time to miss the speeding car.
I realise this portrait of Beirut lacks in details. I think I will engage myself in observational work on Beirut. After all, Beirut seems to run on the energy of looking, being seen. Men in plastic chairs on the sidewalk, women at $500 reservation nightclubs. Those who look, and those who seek to be seen. Perhaps this might be inspiring in some way.
While I do not condone everything described before, it isn't difficult to realise there isn't much I can change about it. To accept is to be at peace.
The walk ended at a café with colourful chairs, set in an old house and its backyard. I read John Irving, listened to classical music in an attempt to shut out the loud American voices around me. Mum joined me and we talked for a bit, then returned home. At night, I was still awake at 02:00, for a lousy fit of coughing seized me. The wind whistled and the rain tapped its furious fingers and I finally fell asleep.
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