Hearing Silence
For fear of sounding like a new age hippie in this post, I’m going to do my best to avoid.. well, sounding like a new age hippie!
It’s true what they say about yoga. It helps reduce stress and makes your body more flexible, blah blah. I’ve already started noticing the difference and I’m hooked. Every class I feel my confidence in my body growing and I want to see how far I can push my body before I fall off balance. Some moves are very complicated and it feels like a very evolved game of twister.
You become a human pretzel with your right hand on red, left foot on yellow, left hand on green.. Soon you lose sense of what foot is where and begin to wonder why you can’t feel you hand that’s knotted behind and under your back. Guess that viewing yoga as a challenging game of balance makes me feel like less of a hippie for doing it.
Something strange happened during my last class. The Monday class I take is brimming with people. Your hands and feet can’t help but smack the person next to you – it’s that crowded! We always start with breathing exercises in the famous Buddha sitting pose (legs crossed, fingers on knees). Some people hum and others breathe freakishly loud while I muffle my giggles. At one point the room grew completely silent, and I don’t know a better way to say this, but I heard.. silence. It echoed through my ears in a way I’ve never heard.
It was weird and I felt kind of uncomfortable. I had to open my eyes to see if the room had unexpectedly emptied out, but there we were 25 people and our teacher.. still, unmoving. Freaky.
And my yoga studio is right on Gemmayze’s main street where sound always manages to trickle into class. Beirut itself is a very noisy city. If it’s not drilling and construction, then someone feels the urge to honk their horn. (sometimes on beat to a political chant) Where I work now is especially noisy. There’s 4 construction sites behind my building, traffic on the main road facing the building and tons off honking during rush hour. Maybe that’s why I heard “silence” during yoga.
This weekend I’m going on a weekend meditation yoga retreat in the mountains. I’m very curious to try it, but I’m keeping my car keys handy in case the silence there drives me nuts. How will I make it through 3 days of meditation, vegetarian food and new age philosophy?
Add comment February 3, 2010
A Dating Sabbatical
I’ve taken a decision to not think about relationships for the next two months. That’s all I have to say about this. Writing it here should cement it better in my mind.
The few that have heard the elaborate reasons why and laughed (you know who you are), just wait and see. I need this and feel somewhat lighter because of this decision.
Let’s see how it goes.
2 comments February 2, 2010
Surviving the Return
With one of my friends recently making the big move back to Beirut, I couldn’t help remember my own experiences adjusting. The worst of it were the first three months. Homesickness for the US, mixed with trying to adjust to a new lifestyle and not knowing my next steps took their toll. It was not pretty.
I finally feel adjusted and happy to be home.. Seven months later. Funny, my mom actually told me all along, it takes six months to adjust to any place. And she was right! How do they always know these things, these moms of ours?
A few tips from my own experience:
1- Take your time. Culture-shock will quickly hit you, no matter how Lebanese you are. Observe and stay true to yourself (and who you’ve become).
2- Keep busy. Join clubs, do activities and pursue your own interests while you do the job hunt. This particularly helped me to meet some interesting people. We all know how much harder it is to make friends once we enter the workforce. The friends you left behind will still receive you with open arms, but meeting others who’ve also lived abroad and share your new interests will keep you grounded.
3- Draw the line with the family. They need to know that yes, although you are still living under their roof, you’ve changed. Privacy is sacred and you need that freedom you’ve come accustomed to. My parents now only call in once or twice a day. No more hunting down my ever move like college days. Phew!
4- Lebanon’s changed. It’s quickly improving. Some things may never change (traffic, chaos, snobbery, electricity cuts, slow internet, etc) but the social dynamic has. Suddenly Lebanon is shrouded in young adults who’ve made the move back home too and creating their own niches (musical, artistic, recreational, etc). They’re everywhere. I’ve already run into quite a few back from Boston too.
5- Bitch, whine and let it out. Hey, it’s therapy. You’ll soon stop noticing the things that bothered you at first.
6- Plan your next travels. That helps me tons. It gives me a sense of freedom and vision for the future. I planned an impromptu trip to Dubai for one of these reasons.
7- Don’t feel like a failure for returning. This might not be the case for you, but if it does feel like you could’ve done more to stay in the US, Europe or wherever – LET IT GO. Things happen for a reason and make the most of how things turned out.
8- Keep in touch with your friends. Lots of people get caught up with where they are now that they slowly lose ties with their friends abroad. Making even the smallest effort makes a big difference. God bless Facebook.
9- Compare as little as possible. As long as you accept that this is Lebanon, you’ll begin to find little things to love about it. For me, one of these things was my family. I love spending time with my mom and little sister. I didn’t realize how much I’d been missing out on until I came back. And although the US has a lot to offer, it’s honestly not the best place to be right now. The economy sucks, unemployment is still growing and there is still a lot of ignorance. And high taxes! That’s one less thing to suffer here.
10- Last of all: Welcome home! You’ll survive.. Trust me 
Add comment February 2, 2010
Fire in the Sky
We woke up to devastating news this morning of an Ethiopian airliner that crashed minutes after taking off from Beirut’s international airport. The plane, carrying 90 people, caught fire and crashed into the sea soon after.
My heart goes out to the families who’ve lost their loved ones. People have been passing along forwards with lists of the passengers – most Lebanese and under the age of 50. Its such a painful incident. The country is shaken up and you feel a whispered mourning for what’s happened.
Regardless of how much we’ve experienced specifically in the Middle East, each incident opens a new wound and the sting gets sharper each time. Officials are saying that so far no sabotage was involved – the cause being bad weather conditions.
It would be very worrying to think otherwise.
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Keep posted on the story as it develops on iLoubnan’s website
Add comment January 25, 2010
Snip, Snip
Cutting certain habits and/or people out of your life can be very therapeutic. When I find myself wondering why certain things happened and begin to dwell over how these things could have been different, I plunge into a negative cycle of useless thinking. Thinking that can be much better directed on more important things in my life.
It’s taken me a while to realize this habit and sometimes the best solution is just to cut the chord – both the mental and the physical one. Now I don’t mean this in a negative, bitter way but more in a self-preserving way. A way to keep myself sane and happy. Cutting things out works best when I do it as soon as I realize the problem.
Eureka – and that’s the problem in and of itself!
Often we don’t see the clear picture until we are either hurt or someone else reminds us. I’m grateful for my wonderful friends in this department who’ll “lovingly” kick my butt whenever they realize what it is I’m doing.
When it comes to men, taking this approach is probably the healthiest way to avoid over-infatuation with the wrong person. The things that on the surface can be so appealing blind the not-so-appealing parts. You know it’s time to cut that person out when you realize the good doesn’t outweigh the bad.
All things aside, we all know in our gut what is right for us and what isn’t. True power is when you know it isn’t right and aren’t afraid to walk away from it.
Add comment January 25, 2010
Mouwathafeen 3
Although I’m no longer working the full-time gig, there are still lots of stories to tell about others working around me.
Take for example the two men I met this morning. Let’s call them Khalil and Boutros for lack of their real names. Right around the corner from my office is an unidentifiable little shop that on the outside looks like a hairdresser shop, but on the inside is actually a Dekeneh (a mini grocery store). I’d always walked past it thinking it was a hairdresser’s because of all the hair products on display, until I accidentally took a peek one day.
With a few shelves and some recycled display tables, it’s home to Khalil and Boutros’ “business”. They have a small fridge, newspapers and magazines, cigarettes, hair products and god knows what else in there. (It was too dark to see it all) I walked in this morning to pick up a pack (I’m hopelessly failing at quitting), and saw the tiniest old men crouched over a 8 inch television with shaky reception. They obviously didn’t enjoy being disrupted from the horse race that was playing on the screen. As I was paying Boutros (the owner, I presumed), I caught Khalil jotting down Arabic numbers on a wrinkled paper.
I’ve never been to a horse race here in Lebanon and was surprised to find these men so actively involved in the results. I wondered which horse they were betting on and if they ever won. Or maybe this was just a hobby. Who knows? More than anything, I wished I was carrying my camera to capture their unfaltering gaze at the screen. Both in their knitted sweaters and low chairs, they were quite the sight.
An old couple of men trapped in time, enticed by a sport so many have forgotten. One day I’ll visit the races here, but until then, I’ll keep updated through Khalil and Boutros.
Add comment January 25, 2010
One Wig Stand
Check out a new side blog I’ve just launched: One Wig Stand
The blog recounts the journeys of a traveling wig stand (my mom’s) that’s making its way around her friend’s homes, sporting the wigs they wear as they battle chemo..
Add comment January 17, 2010
The Stories Shoes Tell
Seems the only inspiration I’m drawing on these days is from this book I’m reading (Little Ghandi by Elias Khoury). As a follow-up to the previous post, little Ghandi (the main character of the story) is a shoe shiner on Bliss Street who works right by Faisal snack. The character is too well-defined to not be inspired by a real one. I keep picturing the old shoe shiner from when I was in college.
Photograph by Rafism - Click on the photo to see more of his work
There’s a certain wisdom to be had from that sort of job. Here’s a caption to make you think twice about the condition of your shoes:
“The shoes were endless. Ghandi could tell a man’s personality from his shoes: worn-out shoes were a sign of carelessness, shoes that were always like new were a sign of fearfulness, shoes that weren’t laced properly were a sign of sexual potency, shoes with the backs folded down like slippers were a sign of craziness.”
People talk endlessly about the power of body language, but what you wear on your feet says a lot too. And so what if I’m a girl. It’s proven true! I read in a body language book recently that interviewers will always check the back of the interviewees shoes as they walked out to determine their mental state.
And ok, if it’s a woman or a gay man (no offense), they will be checking your shoes out for other reasons too.
I still remember my first pair of fancy shoes. They were sandals with multiple thin black straps that wrapped across my foot and buckled right below my ankle. My toes peaked out a little in the front. I must’ve been around 6 years old at the time and would actually look forward to waking up the next morning just to put them on. Funny how these kind of random memories stick with you.
Wait, who am I kidding? I still do that!
1 comment January 12, 2010
Beirut’s Travels
“.. Beirut itself travels. You stay where you are and it travels.. Look at Beirut, transforming from the Switzerland of the East to Hong Kong, to Saigon, to Calcutta, to Sri Lanka. It’s as if we circled the world in ten or twenty years. We stayed where we are and the world circled around us.”
Caption from a book I’m reading now called “Little Gandhi” by Elias Khoury. The book recounts the experiences of a shoe shiner on Bliss Street, an aging prostitute and a curious observer during Beirut’s civil war.
3 comments January 10, 2010
Dummy’s Guide to Gift Buying
Next time you’re stomped for a birthday gift idea, check out that person’s previous Facebook statuses. Little did I know that both my brothers (who live on complete opposite sides of the US) would be inspired by one innocent status I posted back in December:
“[me] is looking for some good business advice for a startup – like writing business plan, estimating revenue, market value, etc.. ? Message me please. (I will reward you generously with yummy food).”
Why would a head-in-the-sky designer ever need to resort to business formulas you ask? ‘Cause I gots to get paid yo! hehe No, actually, I am currently working on a little side project. Business is a whole new territory for me, and as a chronic status-updater, this seemed the best way to reach out. What ensued was a series of comments and offline messages offering to help. (Thanks!)
And three carefully wrapped Dummy’s how-to guides to financial management and business waiting for me under the Christmas tree. And another for my birthday. (Umm.. Thanks.. I guess) My elder brother actually took the liberty of attaching the status that inspired it all onto the cover:
Got to admit, this one really cracked me up! Now that I’ve figured out their system, I’m carefully writing next December’s statuses for more exciting gifts like a ferrari, puppy, all-expense paid vacation.. (Hint, hint: I know you’re reading this bro)
2 comments January 7, 2010
