August 2025: Summertime Spirals & Suitcases
The dreaded month is here but so are the grapes and groans
The grape harvest kicked off earlier this week so Lebanese wineries and laborers were hand-picking while the country was hugged by a heat dome, the Sturgeon Moon, and the Perseids meteor shower. Colorful clusters are being dumped into spinning destemmers, the Israelis are gorging themselves on pieces of Gaza, and their tanks are grinding our South for dessert. Once again, I see October in the distance but all that means is two years of genocide and a new Lebanese government that is ignoring wounds that haven’t been cauterized. The harvest of grapes leads into the harvest of olives but there are no olives to harvest and no false hope to make me think otherwise.
My sister talks about having an official engagement party (even though she didn’t want to have one just a month ago) and her and my dad discuss possible venues with a backup plan “if there’s war.” It’s done so nonchalantly, in the same way someone would think about an indoor option for rainy weather. My other sister is still waiting for her son’s visa to America. I’m doing coffee-with-expats catch up sessions as the second summer wave of “I’m here!” texts pop up on my phone.
On one sweaty Friday by the sea, I see a friend who flew in from Qatar for a week. His friend, who is based here and has joined the morning chat, says that the last year taught him, el hayet 3aybara 3an shanta.
Life is represented by a suitcase.
He was referring to how the exercise of evacuation made him realize that what’s important and what should take priority - outside the lives of those around you - must fit into one suitcase. The grab bag.
I mentioned photographs. It was the second time I was making the case for photo albums where the person opposite me didn’t think they were important enough to make the cut. Both times, I explained that we’d lost decades of photos that don’t exist on anyone’s iPhone. Both times, I worried afterward about my archive of what’s left, the one I still haven’t collated and backed up.
On another expat meeting which took the form of a humid 7pm walk through AUB with cups of Bliss House merry cream, I was summarizing the last four years since I’d last seen this friend in Los Angeles. He was shocked that my updates included my losing interest in wine. I felt self-conscious over my constant costume changes that started after we met in biology undergrad. It’s been over 15 years since we graduated and he’s been on the same track, now a practising doctor in the UAE. I’m on my 4th or 5th rerouting except, in my mind, there’s still no set destination that the GPS is supposed to reconfigure for.
This insecurity may only exist in the thick air between conversations but my friend’s stupefaction reminded me of my uncle’s question from a few months ago when he asked what I studied in uni.
“So you could’ve been a doctor by now?”
A doctor, the timeless emblem of financial stability, status, and intellect. It was true in some multiverse, that I could’ve been a doctor, but it also dismissed what I became in this one. I have no regrets about leaving that goal behind but, when this latest rerouting is still loading and I am also not sprinting to capture the family-business-shaped flags available to me, I can sense the confusion of others. I can feel their fears for me and my evolution. It makes me feel both flighty and immature when I am neither.
It also itches at the scab that has me wanting to drop everything and finish my film but I don’t want that project to be proof that I’m doing something worthy, albeit artsy, and I don’t want the motivation to complete it to come from spite.
Like a few others I know, I’m moving to a different rhythm than the song that’s playing on the loudspeakers in the courtyard. It’s a good thing that I’ve got noise-canceling headphones and I’m used to dancing on my own.*
*That’s not linked to Robyn or Callum Scott!
POPCORN IN MY TEETH ← a new section!
I’ve been watching a lot of movies and TV shows but my favorite by far was 1955’s Summertime with Katharine Hepburn. I’d first seen a clip of it on Instagram but then a write-up on The Criterion Channel made me download it to watch the same night. There are lots of spoilers in the write-up so watch, then come back here to read it.
She plays an American traveller on her first solo trip abroad. In Venice, her trepidation melts away with her loneliness but only after she learns to live a little. That’s all I’ll say.
AT LEAST 10 LITTLE LINKS
Alaa Alqaisi describes the howl of hunger
Anas Al Sharif’s final message and
’s “Guilty by Affiliation”Take a look at the recent numbers of the New York Times. “The Times forecast that digital subscription revenue would rise 13 to 16 percent in the third quarter of 2025, with an increase in the low double-digits for digital advertising revenue.”
- shares his mom’s moghrabieh with Vittles
The dream that is an artist enclave called The Candy Factory
What “August” means (in Arabic)
For weeks afterward, I was wrecked. I cried constantly. Friends would message just to check if we were alive. Not metaphorically. They would text those exact words. “Do you think we’re alive?” It felt like I shouldn’t be. Like none of us should.
…The blast shattered any illusion that I might control my life. It made me realise how close we are to everything ending every minute of every day.
- Nasri Atallah remembers the August 4th Port Blast, five years after the fact.
Sophie Gilbert thinks “Money Is Ruining Television” and Cheyenne Lin makes similar analysis in her video essay, “Tired or Inspired?: The Mainstreaming of Anti-Capitalist Themes.” Michael Sebastian’s “The Lost Art of Taking a Long, Boozy Lunch” would irritate me more but maybe it’s satire? I can’t tell anymore.
“‘Fantastic Four’: How ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ Inspired the Film’s Retro-Futuristic Design”
“There’s something anthropological and almost voyeuristic about walking through someone else’s grocery store. It’s like being let into a country’s kitchen drawer: messy, revealing, disarmingly honest.”
A heartfelt tribute to Ziad Rahbani by Chico Records’ Dikran Mardirian. I also stumbled upon a beautifully written profile of art deco artist Tamara de Lempicka by Fiona MacCarthy from 2004.
Phylloxera has hit the ungrafted vines of the Canary Islands
My love for Teddy Swims is not the first time I’m digging a unique voice coming out of a face-tatted country-ish boy. Am I alone? No. “Everyone is listening to secular praise music. Yes, even you.” However, my new summer tune on repeat is from an artist YouTube recommended: sombr. The other tracks I’ve heard are also great but “12 to 12” is a mix of Jungle and Arctic Monkeys that just makes me want to dance.
PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS
