The Distance Between Eastern Coasts - Letter One
A letter exchange with Kara Daly that unpacks how our two homes are undergoing linked crises
This is part 1 in a 6-part correspondence between American wine writer,
, and me, Farrah Berrou. I’ll be writing parts 1, 3, and 5 here and Kara will respond in parts 2, 4, and 6 on her Substack, Wine is Confusing.Links will be added as the letters get published: letter 1, letter 2, letter 3, letter 4, letter 5, and letter 6. A final recap post will be shared late-November.
Hey Kara,
Before I start this letter, I want to clarify that this topic wasn’t our original plan. When we chatted about doing this letter exchange months back, we had toyed with cheerful ideas that could fit into its autumn time-frame. Our correspondence would coincide with the holiday/election season so tackling peoples’ relationships with alcohol during celebrations felt appropriate. We’d talked about discussing the wine industry’s (mis)handling of the decline in alcohol consumption in the midst of much bigger, daunting declines. Lately, capitalism dressed up as the “future of wine” has seemed more important than health, the environment, and social justice.
I’ll admit I was afraid Gaza would still be under bombardment by the time October arrived (it is). On top of that, both our homes (North Carolina and Lebanon) are wading through destruction now. Yours, after a natural disaster named Hurricane Helene passed through, is working toward recovery from an actual humanitarian crisis. Mine is still enduring an active “humanitarian crisis” even though its cause is not due to a disgruntled Mother Nature. The difference in causation in our two locales shows how language can obscure realities. In Gaza and Lebanon, dubbing the destruction as a humanitarian crisis is a way for people to avoid naming our aggressor directly (Israel). In doing so, the press has made our situations seem as unstoppable as Helene. That is not true, especially when we’re talking about the U.S.’s involvement.
Donate to the mutual aid fund for Beirut’s relief kitchens who are preparing thousands of daily meals for the 1.4 million internally displaced people of Lebanon.
Although it doesn’t seem obvious at first, our tragedies are linked. The emissions of this war on Gaza are unreal and these events don’t happen in a vacuum. Just like what happens in Asheville will affect the rest of America’s ecosystem as well as the world’s, what happens in Gaza will affect the neighboring countries and the world. We all share the same seas and skies.
A similarity I see between NC and Lebanon is the mutual aid efforts that are brought about by the community alone. Lebanon’s (eternally useless) government has been absent in terms of leadership and emergency planning. It seems that residents in NC also feel let down and neglected by their representatives.
This weekend, there was a press conference in Charlotte under the banner of “Fund Recovery, Not Genocide.” After the conference, the organizers headed to Asheville and Rutherfordton to deliver over $30,000 worth of aid, including heaters, generators, baby formula, and warm clothing. According to the press release, “residents of the swing state are finding that their local communities are being left without housing, electricity, and potable drinking water, while the U.S. Government sends billions of taxpayer dollars to the Israeli military for its assaults on Gaza and Lebanon.”
One of the bullet points included with their list of demands was about the amount of aid that the U.S. has sent to Israel over the past year (nearly $18 billion*) being equivalent to more than half of the nationwide 2024 budget for FEMA.
As Justin Olivier Salhani writes here, “no Lebanese is expecting that an American president will save Lebanon’s displaced, its dead or its grieving.” How has the U.S. government’s response to Helene affected peoples’ feelings about the presidential elections? How has it affected yours?
In this post, you referred to your “wine writer identity crisis” which is funny because I had “wine writer reckoning” jotted down in my notes too. I’ve been thinking about how I only want to invest in the categories of things that I packed when I left my Beirut apartment to go to a “safer” area. Things like books, photos, and stationery. I brought more types of pens and various notebooks than I did clothes.
I brought zero bottles of wine. It’s a personal assessment, scanning each room for what *you* deem valuable enough to not leave behind. Wine is very inconvenient cargo but it didn’t even register. Granted, I don’t have a collection of much value at home. The only bottle I should’ve taken, one I may go back for, is empty.
I didn’t even pack any wine books.
This extreme decision-making exercise made me reassess the subject I have dedicated the last 5ish years to. When put to the test, it isn’t that important to me. What does that mean? Maybe I’m giving it too much weight.
Or it pads my existing disenchantment with the industry. This year has rattled my dedication to such a space where the majority refuse to “get political” until it reaches their backyard. Through my iPhone, I’ve watched my ancestral village get gradually erased. How am I supposed to care about a new vintage release or an awards ceremony when southern Lebanon has been hit with 386 strikes of white phosphorus as of October 18?
There’s a unique anger being a Lebanese-American, waiting for the results of the U.S. election because of the effect it’ll have on Lebanon’s fate. I keep asking myself how this would’ve played out if Trump were in office now. Would the Democrats have objected to this genocide more effectively if he had been the one enabling it? (You don’t have to answer this, obviously)
As Lex McMenamin writes in Teen Vogue’s “Young People Know Hurricane Helene Is Tied to Climate Change. The Powerful Don't Care.”, “people in power engage in warfare because it is profitable, and its continued existence keeps the cycle going by globally desensitizing us and traumatizing us.” Keeping us all embroiled in our own tragedies means we have little capacity to worry about anyone else. Ever since September 23, there’s been so much daily loss within Lebanon that I haven’t had the bandwidth to see all that is also happening in Gaza, the West Bank, North Carolina, Florida, Sudan, and, and, and…
It’s very dystopian for *all this* to be happening while Come Over October, the international campaign that encourages people to convene around wine, has been full-speed ahead. The whole concept bugs me for two reasons.
(1) This push against movements like Sober October or Dry January feels off. I don’t think being defensive about people’s desire to cut back on their drinking is a good strategy. Making wine seem like it’s better than/less harmful than hard liquor feels like an outdated approach too. It’s kinda snobbish. On the other hand, there’s Dr. Laura Catena who wants to use science to counter the anti-alcohol sentiments but I think Eric Asimov said it best. I don’t see moderation as a threat and I don’t think it’s why wine’s popularity is tanking. We should be embracing no/low options and encouraging people to be responsible drinkers, if they choose to drink at all.
(2) The Come Over messaging keeps wine planted in that land of frivolity. I’m tired of this insistence that wine facilitates social connection while disconnecting it from the people who make it. Honestly, when I see any wine media lately, the title of a poem by Noor Hindi instantly comes to mind.
How are the relief efforts going on your end? And how was your birthday?
Love & olives,
Farrah