“My hope has burst into a thousand goddamn pomegranate seeds.”

BY Farah -Silvan Kanaan

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photo by Dia Mrad

It is a morning, like any other in Beirut.

As per tradition, your upstairs neighbour has decided to renovate their entire house, at 7 am on a Saturday — that very moment you were having a rare uncomplicated dream on. one of the few days you had carved out for yourself to do absolutely nothing. Nothing bad, nothing good. Nothing mundane, nothing earth-shattering. Nothing mind-numbing, nothing exhilarating. Just nothing. Ah, the joy of gloriously basking in absolute nothingness. It’s a luxury very few in this city can afford. Because even on that rare day off, where you don’t have to catch up on work, where you managed to get out of a family gathering without being buried in an avalanche of guilt-tripping (the subtle repercussions of which will rise to the surface when you least expect it and really cannot handle it), where you don’t have to dress up and play the part, become Pagliacci, entertain the fuck out of everyone so they don’t worry about you, so they don’t ask what’s really going on behind that increasingly unconvincing smile, sick to your stomach at the thought of your carefully constructed mask slipping, even just a tad, and your whole world crumbling down, even then, even then this city manages to throw a million not-so-little inconveniences your way, just because she’s that gracious, that loving.

Beirut is the Regina George of cities.

“Shut up, I love that skirt on you,” she says, knowing fully well the skirt will be ripped by tomorrow, because it got caught on something sticking out of somewhere. There are more things sticking out of other things in these bewitching broken streets than there are warlords in our government, I tell you. I laugh, I laugh, at myself, at my ridiculous, bordering-on-embarrassing love for this city — I’ve become a parody of myself, of every diaspora poem. I have become the za’atar and seven spices brought to the adoptive land in suitcases, my hope has burst into a thousand pomegranate seeds, scattered all over my past and future. I laugh because what else is there to do?

Laughter can save you. Laughing at yourself, mostly, in this city.

Salvation must lay in some kind of olive oil-esque (it’s always olive oil that redeems us, isn’t it?) concoction with a secret ingredient from some random shop tucked into an alleyway — they always transport you to a different realm, don’t they? Beirut grit and grime.

I had fooled myself into thinking that, yes, this was the ONEone curly hair product (unlike the 289,737 ones before it) that would finally tame my chaotic mess of stubborn curls, and me along with it, that would magically turn me into something somewhat resembling a woman, a lady even, instead of the sentient hangover of a soul and body I had been dragging through life until now.

Well, I rubbed it into my hair with the fervour and hope of a nine-year-old kid, before she becomes self-conscious, and starts hating every single thing about her that makes her unique, sick of being a lovable weirdo, desperately craving to be conventionally attractive instead, before she discovers men with big brown eyes full of promises and exquisite pain and matching crooked smiles that betray their intentions but life is short, isn’t it? And akh, it would make for such a great story to tell when I’m 75 years old, playing cards and drinking wine with my two best friends in a tiny house by the Mediterranean sea, I’m ignoring my instincts for them, my heart is already bruised anyway, do it for the story, for the smiles, for the audience, that’s what you were raised to do, right? That’s how you distract baba from his obsession with every little crumb of news from Lebanon on the one hand and numbing TV -shows with a laugh-track on the other, make him laugh, soothe the deeply buried sadness he will never show you, ever, even though you know that is the only thing that might possibly mend what is unequivocally broken between us, before I was born even.

Maybe even before he was born.

“What are you still doing in that shithole!” he half-scolds-half-incredulously-laughs as he starts every single phone call — while I can hear the unmistakable sounds of Lebanese news blasted in the background (or, when he’s driving, the magical voice of Marcel Khalife). I often call him on one of my long walks, the ones that keep me halfway sane — at least, that’s what I tell myself until I can afford therapy, I’m not even halfway to halfway sane, I’m barely holding it together like most people I know in this city, most of whom deserve a medal for even getting out of bed in the morning.

For reasons which cannot be ascribed to logic, I like to take long walks from Geitawi to Manara, passing all kinds of neighbourhoods, all sorts of people, passing the savaged port, passing that reddish cat with no ears in Mar Mikhael, crossing the street so I don’t have to roll my eyes at the shamelessly blasé ajaneb with their shishi liquid lunches and the way they just take up space without ever wondering whose space they’re taking up (I know I’m being harsh but just let me okay? I’ve seen way too many people stuck here, people who are a million times more deserving and talented than these imported low-key orientalists cosplaying as humanitarians and conflict-whatevers, they fill me with an uncontrollable rage I can’t even describe even though they’re not all bad people. I just want them to fuck off. Sorry, it’s not you it’s me, actually it’s you, you’re adding even more frustration to the streets, to the people overflowing within them.

I pass by way too many broken bars and buildings still filled with debris and glass, sure many have opened again, those who could afford it, and some laughter has returned to the streets two- and- a- half years later, but it’s a different kind of laughter, it’s the kind of laughter that almost no-one can afford anymore, it’s cheap laughter, made of plastic, made in the West, made out of infinite dreams and possibilities that can be bought by selling your integrity, most people here don’t even get the chance to sell their souls anymore, most of them wouldn’t but it would be nice to know they could. That’s equality, no? Having that same choice of becoming a capitalist piece of shit even if you don’t want to but let us reject it, dangle it in front of us so we can spit on it! And I ponder, while I cross the newly painted buildings in Gemmayze, all shades of pastel, Barbie’s Beirut, it’s pretty, but it’s the spiritless type of pretty, it’s like cotton candy, you crave it but you always feel sick afterwards.

Goddammit, I can’t even fucking ponder in peace, I almost fell flat on my face because I forgot about that one crack in the street that I thought I had memorized, I swear the streets of Beirut are like a video game, you have to rememember every crack, every mountain of zbele, every pile of dog poop, every broken stoplight (they’re all broken) every dark corner (they’re all dark), every spot where a homeless person sleeps (don’t you fucking dare not look at them and smile. Sometimes I forget, I’m too lost in thought and I remember a few streets later, ‘shit I forgot to check if they’re still there, if they’r’e still alive’), every dekkaneh that doesn’t rip you off, every tousled cat, every rabid dog, every single spot that brings back a memory, good or bad, either way it will break your bloody heart in this doomed city. You’re not allowed to say that, I’m not allowed to say that because I can fucking leave but let’s face it, it’s doomed, is that why those who feel doomed come here and find it hard to leave? Is it because I am broken that I find comfort in Beirut’s brokenness? Is it because I have raging ADHD that I feel sheltered in this borderline city — like I fit in? No one looks up when people scream at each other in the middle of the street, why does that comfort me? Why am I so fucked up? Why is everyone else? If everyone is so fucked up why don’t we find comfort in each other? Why aren’t we kinder to each other?

No one has time to ask themselves these questions because they’re too busy trying to make a living, too busy to occupy their minds at night so they don’t completely lose it. During my walks, there’s usually no electricity because it’s wintertime and the moteur only comes on at 6pm, no wait 5:.30, no wait 5, let me check the schedule (there isn’t one, no kidding, you have to scroll through the texts from the ‘“Moteur Guy’”, the Don Corleone of the neighbourhood). Mine is really handsome and funny, even if I am aware that he hides I don’t know how many guns under the seat of his motorcycle, he showed them to me and said I can have one, I said no thank you, are you scared he asked? I said no, my dad grew up in Tariq El Jdeideh, we both laugh, haha, as if I didn’t grow up completely sheltered in one of the richtest countries in the world but he always says I still have that look, that look that can shrink someone’s soul, even kill a man, I know what you’re thinking, he’s probably flirting, of course he is, he is a Lebanese man and he’s tall and handsome and he holds the power, but he’s never crossed a line and so I respect him, even trust him, you develop a very unique moral compass in this fucked up beautiful city, and so he gave me one of those batons instead, no no no I said, no I insist he said, and so I took it home with me and I started playing with it and now I broke it and I’m scared to tell him because he holds all the power, literally and figuratively speaking, he decides when to turn the power on or off, whether you can watch Netflix and drown out your thoughts, whether you are writing this story with a baby heater next to you, feeling toasty in your bed with some cute twinkly soft lights on and Billie Holiday serenading you, or freezing your teez off, violently shaking and shivering despite wearing 4four layers of clothing and hiding under three duvets, in the pitch black devilish darkness withand the only music accompanying you is the loud ass musalsal from across the streets and the insane barking of the poor sweet tied- up German Shepherd being shouted at by a sadist fuck.

Anyway, I digress. The olive oil concoction that would make my wildest dreams come true, right?

I drowned my hair in it, gently wrapped it in a pillowcase (towels are the worst enemies of curls, is the one useful thing I’ve learnt from the internet) and then I went to sleep dreaming about the endless new possibilities my luscious curls would afford me as soon as I woke up the next day. Oh, I have an important meeting, with important people, I said to myself, while I nodded off, smiling, wait until they see my hair. I woke up with a renewed appreciation for life, myself, Beirut, my work, people, everything, ready to let the water wash away the magic hair-potion and transform me forever.

There’s no water. No. Nonononononononononono. This cannot be happening. No. But of course, that’s exactly what’s happening. So, I get out of the shower, freezing, standing in front of the mirror, looking at the sad oily hair turd on my head, and I collapse with laughter. And I cry a little, too, because did I really think soft sexy curls would fix my problems? No, but if I don’t believe that, what else will keep me going?

There’s a knock on my door. It’s the downstairs neighbour having a complete meltdown, by himself, at me, he came home to a flooded hallway, didn’t I notice the leak? Habibi, I don’t notice anything that happens at night, that’s what they invented xannies for, get with the program. He storms into my house, we try to find the leak, my landlord (also my neighbour) joins the pity party, akh akh akh, it’s endless, every day there’s something, how could you not see this, why are you yelling at her, it’s not her fault, okay okay, you’re right — which room is yours, he says? That one, I respond, half-asleep, unaware of the slight viciousness in his voice.

Oh, so you’re the one who does a lot of … sports … at night?

I’m stunned into silence, did he really just say that? No he could not have because his wife was killed in the explosion, and that can’t be on his mind, can it? Are men really this disgusting, no, it can’t be, I imagined it, but then why is he staring at my chest that way, no, I must have imagined things I tell myself, I literally shake my head so those ridiculous thoughts can fall out of my ears, and try to look at him with softened thoughts, kind thoughts, empathetic thoughts, I can’t even begin to feel what he went through, what he is still going through, what his children are going through, no no no you must have imagined it, this city has made you paranoid, your depression has made you dark, your anxiety has made you, well, anxious, people aren’t like this, they’re just not — so I don’t think anything of it when he follows me into the living room, and I was right because see! He’s starting to help me drain all the water, I had just been using a towel like the ditz that I am and it was taking forever but he started filling up the dustpan and emptying it in the bucket and I said: Wow I didn’t even think of that, thanks for the tip and he looks at me and he smiles but it’s not a kind smile, it’s a hardened smile, it’s the kind of smile that makes you shiver, with eyes that are both alight and dead and my heart sinks and he sneers: Yes it’s amazing what your mind can think of when you don’t think with your …. and he looks down there, right at it, a long hard stare, and I turn around and I am feeling dizzy, and I want to kill him, literally I want to kill him for making me feel like this for even one second, I want to kill him for all the women who have been made to feel like this, I swear I would kill him, if I could, if I knew I would get away with it but then I think of his children and they already lost their mother in such a terrible way and, I just stay far away from him and make my landlord come back into the house without saying anything because they’ve known each other for decades and she’s not going to believe me and what good will it do ? I’m unmarried and live alone, I’m already a whore anyway, forget it and maybe he didn’t really say that (he did) and maybe I just misunderstood (I didn’t) and maybe it was just a very lame attempt at inappropriate humour (it wasn’t) because people aren’t like this, they’re just not and I try hard to think about that time the Red Cross came and knocked on our door and asked us if we could light the way with our phones because they had to carry down the old lady who lives on the ninth floor, who was having a panic attack, a side effect of her antidepressants, Jesus Christ a lonely old lady who only just went on antidepressants, at her age, imagine what she has lived through in this country, but things are so bad now she needs antidepressants, and the Red Cross volunteers (they’re the best kind of people, aren’t they, modern day heroes is what they are) are so gentle with her, she’s whimpering and they address her with ‘Teta’ and I want to cry, at the obscenity of it all, how they took away her dignity, how they destroyed what was left of this country in such a way that this old lady was forced to put poison in her body just to get through the day, curse them, curse all politicians, curse the world we live in but oh, she is so happy to see these strangers that are oh so gentle and patient, isn’t that both the saddest and most beautiful thing in the world? And I forgive the downstairs neighbour for being a sexist, leering, intrusive piece of shit, because I can’t even imagine what he went through, maybe this is how he copes, by demeaning women, some women, women like me, whose freedom he resents, does it impact my life, not really, and I think of all the good people and they outweigh the bad ones, I think, am I bad? Have I made people feel this way? Even unintentionally? What makes people bad or good, have we figured that out yet?

And while I contemplate the meaning of life, in my flooded house, without electricity, I feel my scalp itching and I remember the oily miracle that was going to tame my mane, and change my life, and I sit in my dark home, with only a flickering candle to hold me over until the generator kicks in, this feels like poetry, should I write poetry? And I scratch my itchy scalp until the water mercifully starts running again and I am almost giddy with anticipation because it will all be worth it, my perfectly defined Medusa curls will not be made of snakes, no they will all be different versions of me, a cute little puppy with a heart of gold, a bit clumsy yes, but she means well, a vivacious vixen with a whisper so intoxicating it will make all my narcissistic exes come crawling back, begging for forgiveness and just one more chance to win me back, just so I can laugh at them ha ha ha no thank you, and send them on their way though, because the new me will hold no grudges, she will only hold space, space for everything that’s good and pure in this world, and every curl will be tenacious but soft, strong and stubborn, but in an adorable way, every curl will be unique, as I would be if the world would just give me a chance, wouldn’t force me into this harness of plebeian passivity, if it would just let me be me, the me I was before I realised who I was and decided I didn’t like me, or rather the world didn’t like me and I was far too eager to agree. These new curls will shine and soar and I will shine and soar with them, the skies will burst open for me and my ringlets, and create thousands of unseen paths, all of which I will walk with my head held high, and my tendrils messy yet magical, unruly but with confidence, and together we will dream infinite dreams, andwalk infinite paths, and smile infinite smiles and let people in and show them who I am without a mask and I will love the way I want to love, fearless and without abandon, without rules, against everything that makes sense, and I will be loved the same way in return and I will accept it.

And so I step out of the shower and let my hair air dry and my curls! Behold! They look … *I slightly squint* … they look exactly the same.