Tag: looking back

by jad

Kuwait: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 10

Part 1: Growing Up For the longest time, I’d dream in distinct phases. In college, my dreams were populated by people from high school; in high school, my dreams featured my friends from Kuwait. That pattern has since abated; today, my memories of Q8, as we called it, are still vivid, but the details are hazy & more dreamlike than ever before. Kuwait is where my sister was born; it’s where I heard Pretty Fly for a White Guy on the US Armed Forces Radio—you had to turn the dial to the very edge of the spectrum, in one corner … Continue reading “Kuwait: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 10” →

by jad

The Family Tree: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 5

Part 1: Oummi I’m looking at a NYT article from 1984. The story goes like this: “The United States battleship New Jersey bombarded Druse & Syrian gun batteries in Lebanon for more than nine hours today in the heaviest and most sustained American military action since the Marines arrived here 16 months ago. The gunfire was directed at targets ”in Syrian-controlled Lebanon which have been firing on the city of Beirut,” a Marine spokesman, Maj. Dennis Brooks, said. The shells fired into the capital had landed in Christian-dominated East Beirut, several miles from the Marine compound at Beirut International Airport.” … Continue reading “The Family Tree: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 5” →

by jad

Beirut: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 3

Part 1: The Writers This is ‘Floating Woman’ by Joe Nix. As soon as I stepped into Jupiter and saw this on the wall, I thought: “It’s Raneem!” I even said it out loud. The resemblance would have been shocking if I hadn’t seen it before; there’s a mural in Gemmeyze that also looks just like her. “Apparently, Raneem-looking people are muses.” Christine should know; she’s painted her too. Raneem and I first met when we were both searching for inspiration. She had a blog & so did I; we left a comment or two, exchanged messages, & agreed to … Continue reading “Beirut: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 3” →

by jad

Edinburgh: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 2

Part 1: Nemo me impune lacessit On Christmas Eve, someone asked if I miss living in Edinburgh, & my response reflected the ambivalence of my experience there. I certainly missed my favorite haunts in Scotland’s ghostly capital—Dagda Bar, The Mash Tun, Snax Café, Yococo, Turquaz, Balkanarama. I miss the feel of my different neighborhoods—The Royal Mile, Easter Road, Buccleuch Street. I even miss Drummond. I miss our student union building & the special serendipitous place that its Library Bar will always have in my life—indeed, I miss those irreproducible moments the most—celebrating the actual end of the world in 2012, … Continue reading “Edinburgh: 20 Weeks of Gratitude, Week 2” →

by jad

New Year’s Eve, 2019

You’re probably sick of my rituals by now, but decades don’t come by every day, and there’s something satisfying about symmetry—it’s almost 2020, and just like in 2010, I’m standing at the threshold of something that feels new and energizing. I’m excited to step into this confluence, but I want to do so with a lot more intention & mindfulness than I ever have before. I’m not usually one for New Year’s Resolutions, but I have some in mind this year. I have goals, but more importantly, I seek an orientation. I want to “face up” to this future; à … Continue reading “New Year’s Eve, 2019” →

by jad

Pantograph

“Third proposal.” By number two, I suppress a groan, my muscles aching from the unforgiving pew and long hours.  “Third proposal: Welcome our gifts and our limitations too.” There’d been a death in our building. Across the hall, a neglected toothache took a troubled life away. No judgement. “God welcomes everything in us; in our turn, we can accept ourselves just as we are. That is the beginning of a healing that is so necessary for us all.” That morning, the bus was crawling up Pill Hill, like it did every morning. There was a stop for the Good Vibes hat, … Continue reading “Pantograph” →

by jad

20+C+M+B+19

This may not be the strangest thing to happen in our building’s very long history in this part of town, but I dare say that it probably stands out. Tonight, our parish priest blessed every room of our tiny apartment with a special prayer based on the function and meaning of that space—yes, including the bathroom. We started by chalking the door: 20 † C † M † B † 19, the year and the letters of “christus mansionem benedicat,” or “may Christ bless this house.” Our home was then sprinkled with holy water from an aspergillum of rosemary. Something … Continue reading “20+C+M+B+19” →

by jad

The Last Mile

It has happened, and my head is still spinning. My last weeks in Beirut, a proverbial blur, left no room to think or plan or feel — senses heightened, yes, but nothing sinking in; a cartoon dog of emotions–“no take, only throw”–onwards, forwards, one thing to the next, and here we are now entertain us. You don’t put off the get-togethers when you’re about to leave, so you find yourself more energetic and affirmative than ever before. “Yes,” I will go to your BBQ. “Yes,” I will join you for drinks afterwards. “Yes,” I’ll have another beer. I wrote those … Continue reading “The Last Mile” →

by jad

New Year’s Morning, 2019

“Vibratory atmospheric atoms of the life-principle…Look at the silly men…Where go? What for?—sleep. But this foolish gang was bending on-ward…The rhythm and the IT of our final excited joy in talking and living to the blank tranced end of all innumerable riotous angelic particulars that had been lurking in our souls all our lives…What’s your road, man?” Jack Kerouac, On The Road I start this New Year with lines taken out of pages 152 through 251 of Jack Kerouac’s ‘On The Road.’ I’d scribbled these into the upper-right corner of a page that was otherwise taken up by an anarchist … Continue reading “New Year’s Morning, 2019” →

by jad

Under the Hood

One of the more delightful aspects of setting up this blog has been forcing myself to tinker with HTML like I used to as a child of the early web. This was before the internet became much too complicated and way too simple all at once; when there was just enough innovation for my “computer user” magazines to keep me interested, but not too many over-friendly widgets and doodads that blackbox’d all hope for caring about the inner workings of things. This world would rapidly disappear (for me) with the advent of Blogger, Tumblr and eventually, Facebook, when it became … Continue reading “Under the Hood” →