Before heading to Lebanon, I wondered about how it’d feel to see just how much of what I’d known had changed, and Christine wondered back: how will it feel to see how much of what I’d known is still the same? The answer to both those wonderings was “yes.”
Yes, a lot has changed, and much of it saddened me, but shockingly a lot had not. Even my old haunts in Mar Mikhael, so badly affected in the blast, still feature familiar sites and names, despite it all. This gladdened my heart. So many had bounced back.
And Hamra, more distant but still crushed under the boot of banking terrorism seemed almost the same; it was like stepping into an old postcard where everything looks familiar but oddly colorized; everyone’s the age I remember I was and is dressed the same as I did, except I’m not one of them anymore – I’m just passing through. This saddened my heart.
And somehow, I blinked and whole eras had ended without me noticing; I was shocked to learn that Future Television had shut down, now broadcasting Koranic verses all day. Did I read about that happening and simply forget? Did I just not pay attention?
The death of this channel and what it represents of a catastrophic end to the Hariri hegemony over this city and long stretches of my personal and professional life is now just another anecdote to share; just another thing that happened while I was away. Oh yeah, remember that? Funny how things go. My brain short circuits at the banality of it all.
There was a recurring motif of revival and renewal that kept coming up in the last conversations in my last few days in Beirut. One friend wanted to reinvigorate efforts around a joint project scuttled by COVID; another wanted my blessings again to resurrect an old concept we’d worked on together years back after one false re-start and better timing and circumstances. She even marked the moment in my scrapbook with these words: “living is reincarnating.”
That’s a very Lebanese energy: tubthumping through crises after crises after crises, knocked down and getting up again, ad infinitum. It is both life affirming and exhausting, something between a phoenix and Sisyphus.
Muß es sein? It must, it must. That’s how the song goes, at least.
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One of the joys of Lebanon that I experienced on my very last day was the satisfaction of tapping into my tacit knowledges honed over years of riding the bus in and out of Beirut.
A lot has become less familiar; sight lines I’d relied on to find my way around have dramatically changed as new buildings have gone up, for example. Even the trusty number 5 bus has made slight shifts in where it passes and stops. But the overall feel is still the same—the everyday practices of hopping on and hopping off; of handing cash and taking back change; of vocalizing stops and volunteering information; it is still there like a grammar shaping new slang. So, it felt good to slip back into that exo-skeleton; to sync up to Beirut’s flow and rhythm and arrive on time every time.
And it was of course poetically appropriate that my two appointments that morning were with two friends who had, in two different but complementary ways, journeyed with me as I unlearned and relearned my city over the past decade or more.
x
“Hey dude. You make it back safely?
We’ve made it back, safe and sound, with a time of decompression and debrief in between too, to avoid the emotional bends that come with a pilgrimage like this, and, I hope, reduce the jet lag that comes with the eventual return.
“U had fun here?”
I had fun. I shed tears as well. Lebanon is like that: a crate of mixed fruit, the good stuff laid out nice and pretty on the surface, with the crappy stuff at the bottom. Except there isn’t much good stuff to spread around anymore. So, you choke down what you get and laugh.
“Thank God. Welcome home.”
People returning from walking the Camino are advised “to practice being gentle with and kind to yourself” because “re-entry is a very tender time.” I feel like something similar is to be expected after Lebanon.