May 2025: A phony with a glass of wine
Swirling all my emotions, again
It’s warm. We’ve reached chocolate-bars-in-the-fridge heat and because it’s Beirut, I’ve been meeting new people on sidewalks. Our conversations travel. That, or I’m introduced as “also from the South,” and then the stranger and I name our respective villages.
“Blida.”
”Kfarkila.”
Depending on how far south their village is and how notorious it’s become since the Israeli razing, we exchange a silent look of understanding first, names second (if at all). It’s been comforting to find others in the wild where I am not met with fumbled words. Instead, I don’t have to explain the anger that has coated my corneas because they recognize it when our eyes meet.
When there aren’t other southerners around, I am met with battles I don’t have the will to fight. I’ve been asked why the Israelis demolished my grandparents’ house (because there must be a reason), I’ve been told that going to my village should be safe now as long as I’m not affiliated (it’s not safe for anyone), and I’ve received a DM from a Lebanese acquaintance who says the Israelis will stop bombing (the South) when they (Hezb) stop storing weapons.
Why have we internally surrendered to the point of talking like this?
Sometimes, when people ask what it feels like to see a whole town mutilated, I say that it makes me wonder what it was all for and then I think about how I said it and how they interpreted it because I’m the speaker from the South and they’re the listener from somewhere untouched. Maybe what they heard isn’t what I meant.
The way I hear things differs, too. When my dad says we can’t rebuild, that “we need a peace treaty with them” while he stands on what’s left of his parents’ olive grove (poisoned dirt and dead trees), I hear one thing, and when a former colleague says the exact same sentence while sipping her tea on a sidewalk in Ashrafieh, I hear another.
In the last few months, I’ve been pre-interviewed for an editorial job only to be told I probably wouldn’t be interested because it doesn’t agree with my politics. I’ve been invited to attend a talk about the Lebanese Civil War and then told I probably wouldn’t like it because it doesn’t agree with my politics.
What? What are my politics?
“Well, you’re pro-resistance, no?”, was the answer when I flat-out asked. It was a verbal reply so it wasn’t clear if the R was capitalized. These assumptions have come from people who follow me on social media but don’t know me beyond that. I’m not bothered or offended by the label but I’m curious as to how I’m being read online. Are my politics assumed because I haven’t hopped on the New Lebanon bandwagon? Or are they assumed because of where I’m from and what that says about my identity instead of what I say about it?
Municipality elections for the southern villages are this weekend. Coinciding with what would be the 25th anniversary of the South’s liberation (from Israel’s 18-year occupation in 2000) doesn’t feel like a coincidence. In 2016, I volunteered at the call center for Beirut Madinati, an alternative to the lists that had controlled the city for too long. As a southerner, I cannot vote in Beirut but I wanted to help somehow as the capital is where I live and its municipality holds a lot of power. This year though, I’m a disengaged spectator because the whole act of voting feels like a badly written play. We are still waiting for the entity that destroyed the village to allow the municipality to have a prefabricated trailer but you want me to go vote?
I wish this country was better at being a country instead of a waiting room.
I was at a shop in Hamra when (who I assume was) a government employee came in to collect the fee for their electricity bill. He then rejected the shopkeeper’s 100 dollar bill because it’s old. “3am neshtighil la dawle w ya rayt el dawle 3am ta3milna shi, shu badna fiyya.” We work for the State, if only the State did something for us. What do we need it for. They’re constantly wringing the pungent sweat out of a dirty rag and wiping your eyes with it.
Last month, I saw a man praying on the sidewalk in Tripoli. His shirt said, “out of everything I lost, I miss myself the most.” When I write these monthly newsletters, I feel like a hypocritical broken record. When I skip a graphic story about Gaza or order a sandwich after scrolling through news of airstrikes in the South, I’m letting another part of my soul dissolve. And when I stop to bask in a simple pleasure - like say, reading a book in the shade of a tree at a coffee shop - I feel like the anger I log here is a lie and I squash my own joy.
How do we retain our humanity in dystopia? How do we resist the theft of more of our selves? I guess it’s by acknowledging our conflicting parts, lending versimilitude to our verses, and hanging on tighter to all that we are.
HOT OFF THE PRESS
Waraq hosted a riso print day two weeks ago. Participants got to print 20 copies of their own design file using a combination of two colors. I chose the metallic gold and green combo to print the above foldable booklet featuring a poem I wrote about my teta. It sounds made up but the poem came to me in a dream last November and, later that same day, we found out that her home in the South was no more. The process has rekindled my desire to return to analog, tangible publishing.
I got my copy of The Discontent’s latest from Barzakh before they sold out (they should have more in two weeks). I immediately opened it up to my essay. I must admit that because of the layout, I hate that my grandparents’ house is in the gutter (that’s what you call the part of the page that gets eaten by the binding). So far, the issue is a beautiful collection of imagery and words, mainly for Lebanon and Palestine.
AT LEAST 10 LITTLE LINKS
I spent this morning thinking about my kitchen with Mean Girls’ Kevin G
“Because people carry culture, not museums.” from this article by Fayrouz Hamama
Visitors to the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris can view Photographing the Heritage of Lebanon, 1864-1970, an exhibit featuring 77 photos from USJ’s archives, until Jan 4, 2026
Hamza Shehryar takes a shot at A24 in “Indie war propaganda is still war propaganda”
“Reading During a Genocide: What Etel Adnan's novel taught me” from Isabella Hammad
I love deep dives on why urban planning is the way it is. Harrison T. Brown created Robert Moses: The Power Broker Who Built New York which is a quick overview of how one man transformed the major city, including the eviction of Little Syria.
Similar to my ruminations in the March monthly, I came upon this Essay: The digital death of collecting.
The Happiness Quiz from NYT (gift link, yes I re-subscribed and I hate it)
Dua Lipa’s Service95 hosted their first Book Tasting event in London. It reminds me of an event that Aaliya’s Books/Wines had hoped I would host at their Gemmayzeh spot but they ended up closing last December.
If you have a birthday coming up, please borrow this idea from
but also read “I Am So Fucking Tired of Listening To Women My Age Complain About Being Old and Washed” by .“Can ‘Junk’ DNA Be Used to Predict Breast Cancer?” Maybe. A new study at AUB is looking into it. Also, read about their biobank.
More subtly, it feels like our own aliveness is what’s at stake when we’re urged to get better at prompting LLMs to provide the most useful responses. Maybe that’s a necessary modern skill; but still, the fact is that we’re being asked to think less like ourselves and more like our tools. It makes you wonder if Wendell Berry had it right when he wrote: “It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”
- From Oliver Burkeman’s The Imperfectionist: Navigating by aliveness, emphasis in bold is my own
PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS
THE LAST MONTH OF AANAB NEWS
It’s been a slow month here but I’ve been spending a lot of time in R&D mode in the real world. Summer hibernation (hiding indoors under the AC once the temperatures hit 30 and above) is on the horizon so we’ll see how it all synergizes and synthesizes in the weeks ahead.
Love the photo of the watermelon boxes! Thank you as always for providing a snap shot of your life in Beirut. Hadn't realised there would be so much lack of acknowledgment of the pain you're going through within Lebanon. That must be so tough.