seventy

21:00:05

I'm sleepless in Paris.

One of the main reasons why I was so looking forward to coming to Paris was the facility with which I could leave my past behind. Here, I'd be nobody and anybody.

Wrong.

My past was here and too frequently in my vicinity. I'd often cross paths with The Pope. Now technically that wouldn't have been problematic, but we had had a few misunderstandings, unresolved issues and a slip of tongue in the first weeks of my being here, that by now we avoided each other and we both knew it. It was for our peace of mind.

Wrong.

Those issues needed to be sorted out. I hated feeling negatively towards him and I wanted him to know why I was avoiding him: not because I could not stand the sight of him, but because I thought he couldn't. Besides, if I were to bring up all our issues out of the blue, he would undoubtedly call it my "cinèma".

True story.

Our last and final misunderstanding was the direct result of bad translation and insecurity.

“Tu es chez toi?? Je suis en bas…”

Was this message for me? We hadn’t spoken for a month after the unfortunate night at his friend’s swank house party. I say swank because I had never seen a Parisian home this cool: right on the street in the 1er, ground floor, jazz band playing for the guests and passers-by. It looked more like a cozy bar than a house. I had brought along two friends and we let loose. I recall the punch bowl with forest berries that I kept revisiting, the buonissimo cheese platter I could have called my own, the stumbling, the bumping into people, the spinning room, the iPhone videos of other people, the loud laughter, the obnoxious poses for the camera. Let’s just say it was one of the most fun nights I had had in a long time, minus the social decorum. The next morning, I woke up not with a hangover, but a perpetual blush, a blush you’d wear if you were caught looking through a key-hole.

His message was definitely a surprise.

“Yes, what are you up to?”

“Je bois un verre”

Indeed, when I looked out the window to the street below, there he was with his friends standing outside the bar.

“Je bosse un peu, tu veux passer?”

“Pourquoi pas”

“Dernier etage 829b”

10 minutes later.

“Tu veux que je passes??”

“Si l’absence d’un ascenseur ne vas pas t’etouffer, oui, passes”

“Alors??”

Why was he repeating himself? Something was off…

“Je suis pas comme ca enfin Sleepless…”

Je suis pas comme ca. What? What was that supposed to mean? I am not like that. Like what? Like I don’t go up to my ex-girlfriend’s house?

I was home with a friend, not with rose petals on the bed.

“Enfin, je crois que tu m’as mal compris.”

“Mal compris explique moi.. C est quoi ton adresse etage et code??”

“Ca veut dire quoi “je ne suis pas comme ca”?”

“Allo??”

I started ignoring him. I could hear their laughter echo all along the street. Drunk and on the crawl for tonight’s headline. I’ll pass.

“Ba tu me propose de passer alors je viens…tu veux pas? En plus j ai un cadeau”

A gift? His friend was holding a rose wrapped in plastic. With my sense of humour leeched out of me, I thought it best to continue ignoring him.

“Sleepless tu me laisses, dans mon coin… Tu me donne l etage, le code mais pas le numero…Apres tu fais ton Cinema. Je te propose de te voir. Je ne pense uniquement a coucher avec toi!! Mais si tu veux pas que je passe dit le moi au lieu de me faire attendre. Merci”

Only the next day, did I come to realize that he never actually knew where I lived. He had dropped me home once, at the end of the street and I walked the rest.

“Pope, bonne nuit et bon spectacle a toi et tes amis”

“C’est toi qui as le spectacle vu d’en haut…”

Shit. Did he see me? No, that was impossible. I had to deny it.

“I wish, would’ve been interesting.”

“Ca reste un spectacle, apparament tu interpretes mal…”

“C’etait et ca sera toujours un malentendu entre nous. It’s a pity really that we speak on different wavelengths.”

It went on for a little longer, we were talking in circles.

“On peut oublier cet episode? Sans rancune”

“Je n’ai aucune rancune, mais toi oui pour reagir comme cela…”

He was right, but I couldn’t be wrong.

“Quoi dire, j’adore le cinema…mais franchement, aucune rancune”

“Et bien parfait alors la prochaine fois tu m’invitera chez toi simplement…”

And that was that. We never spoke again. We would avoid looking in each other’s direction. We tried to be friends and failed.

But the more I’d avoid him, the more reason I had to want to leave Paris. It was likely that after that, I’d never see him again.

Wrong.

Whispering Cities

Waiting for Whispers

sixty-nine

18:48:23


I'm sleepless above a fantastic landscape of rivers and forests.


The following day I was invited to a friend's dress-up party. Everyone was excited. For one, his last party was mad and memorable and the theme for the up-coming night had everyone talking about their outfits.


Leather. Latex. Heels. Uniforms. Diapers. Whatever tickled your fancy.


I hadn't yet thought of what I'd wear, but I had promised the host that I'd bring along a stranger.


A promise broken is the last one in line of promises made, so a stranger it had to be.


My initial idea was to magically meet someone, in the street or in a cafe, who was the right bit of this and a good amount of that and who happened to be free that night. I abandoned the plan as soon as I realised that I had only four hours to go, more than half of which would be spent preparing and commuting.


So I put up an online ad (the previous day had not sucked out all my hope and trust in the online community).


It went something like this: 50s dahling looking for a smartly dressed gentleman for a trendy soirée, tonight ONLY


Pretentious and obscurely decadent, enough honey to attract a B-rating.


To my surprise, I had a reply within minutes.


He was young, 23, blonde, blue-eyed, motorbike-riding, surf-boarding, engineer who didn't have a white shirt, but gave me the choice between light blue, gray and carbon.


Keep a promise and take a risk? Yes. He will have to do.


We decided to meet a little before the party, incase our photos turned out to be fakes and to see whether the uncomfortable silence that would inevitably poke its nose out would indeed be uncomfortable.


Uncomfortable it was, the ride in the metro from point A to point B. It's odd. One would think Paris to be open-minded and tolerant, but it only took a pair of silk shorts and fake eye-lashes for me to be taken for a hooker. I even got an eye-dart gesture from the North African guy in shi7ata, something I could only manage to translate into "Yalla, next stop?". Not knowing how to translate, "Dude, chill, I'm only going to a party. Why are men such pervs?!" into an ocular movement, I settled for avoiding to look in his direction until I arrived to my stop.


Moto was waiting for me outside the entrance. He looked younger than I'd like, but for what it was worth, he looked smart and decent (if judging a book by its cover was the way to go about life).


But this story is not interesting. It does not end with my hair flying through the streets of Paris. I was home and asleep by three o'clock in the morning.


The narrative picks up the following day. Not outside my door, window or anything, but in my inbox. Late applicants.


There was a 40 year old with a wide-eyed freaky look from my neighbourhood who was up to have "de la fun" with me. A what-looked-like spam message from a balding 48 year old, his portrait framed by pink and red hearts. A picture of a mini baseball bat clad in speedos. Several angles mind you. A Latin-looking-boy swearing he was French, who was fresh out of a relationship and looking for someone.


And a very short but eloquent message from a 52 year old who knew how to dress and loved champagne.


I noticed his e-mail address. Non-French-looking-name@aya.Yale.edu. Ladies and gentlemen, we may have a winner.


As soon as I replied thanking him for his, albeit, late entry, I turned towards my favourite confidant, Google.


If he wasn't Pinnochio, then he was an ambassador of an organisation whose abbreviated name could be recognised as immediately as CNN. Although, embarrassingly, I didn't.


My jaw dropped. Just the other day I had discovered that the men with whom I had had coffee in Rome a couple of years ago were actual princes, two brothers whose lineage could be traced back to the Holy Roman Empire. We met outside the Hiroshige exhibition and they invited me for a quick cup before I took the train back to Milan. The younger, unmarried one, left me his contact details and I have since added him on Facebook. Don't ask me why, but I threw his name into the magic pot of Google only to stumble upon an article where his brother was referred to as Prince S.R.I (Sacro Romano Impero). They were so modest and genuine when we had met that to think they were royalty, was mind-blowing. This is the one thing beyond the Nouveaux Riches' purchasing power. Bless the wealthy who reek not of excess and oversized logos, but of discretion and refinement.


And this is where I would like to bust any rumour that questions the authenticity of my stories. This shit is too insane to be fiction. To make things up, to blow up details would be beneath and beyond the point of me writing.


At first, I was, of course, suspicious of my findings regarding Ambassador. One could have, with some effort, fabricated the e-mail address, stolen his name and consequently reaped the benefits. Even the photo he had later sent me could be found online, along with other similar ones.


But his English was impeccable and his sense of humour tasteful, that was authentic, and I did not doubt it.


I shared with him my anxiety regarding his age. Despite having a renowned weakness for older men, he was ten years older than my "record". I hate to line them all up like that, but one can't help but single out the fantasies that have come true.


"Well, perhaps, it's higher powers (in which I usually do not believe) and we should stick to our age groups. And then again, as you say, life provides for all kinds of friendships and surprises, for curious minds.


If you ever want to go out for a dinner or a drink, I would certainly be the gentleman to invite you, no anxieties required (I would probably be more nervous than you, but perhaps more experienced in concealing...)"


His reply did it for me. It had to be him. Or someone wise enough to have my snout pointing in his direction.


It didn't take much convincing or brooding over; I would regret not meeting him.


"Why not?"


It would have to be Sunday or September, he was a diplomat after all.

sixty-eight

16:23:34

I'm sleepless at CDG.

It can be argued that no matter how good a movie is, the ending makes it or breaks it.

The time I have thus spent in Paris has been everything, but what I had anticipated. I thought I would arrive, break out of my shell, blossom in a thousand colours, write countless romantic stories, and emerge as a full and complete woman.

Not quite.

As much as I'd like to think of myself otherwise, adapting took some time, not a few days, nor a few weeks, but a couple of months.

Instead of abusing my liberty and anonymity, I shrunk further back as though afraid of what I would discover. Ultimately, I convinced myself that I just wasn't interested to go out of my way, to meet people, to make things happen for me, to find the doors I needed to open.

As for romance...it said peek-a-boo and disappeared in a cloud of indigo.

And then came my final week. Suddenly, I was putting myself in precarious situations just...out...of...plain...curiosity. I wanted to meddle, to rip apart, to tinker with possibilities. As soon as I began to do so, it felt like a rush to the surface, all my frustrations bubbling up alongside me until we all shot through the thin fragile film dividing ocean and air. The blue, blurry environment of lonely whales calling immediately receded into a faraway cove of my mind. Now, there was colour and warm temperature and sticky skin and tension and anticipation, feelings of weight and body, concepts that were not heard of in the universe of slow and buoyant, where collisions seem oiled and apologetic, because with miles of marine blue distance, meetings were avoidable.

My first date was with Nice (boy for nice girl). Yes, an online find. No, I'm not proud of it. In fact, I knew very little about him except for minor details: early 30s, French, decent-looking, his written English was commendable, he had lived in the States for quite some time and when Googled, banking and private investment pages would pop up. Surely, he was not a freak...although after Clooney, I had pretty much sworn off anyone with "private investments" on their CV.

We exchanged several messages and seeing that I was travelling soon, we set up a date not long after. Sunday, 15:00 at Place Saint-Sulpice.

I had not been out on a conventional date for years now. I was nervous and I had to take necessary precautions. I asked Laydi to be my private detective. Not only would she help commemorate such a "milestone", but she would be there in case I needed an emergency exit card. Better safe than sorry.

I arrived there on time. To avoid looking like a nervous first-timer, I sat down at an outside table at the main cafe and ordered a glass of orange juice. And waited.

Fifteen minutes went by and I was still waiting. I had, of course, yielded into looking around for someone who looked like him. I only saw extremes: too good looking to be true, too unattractive to give me enough enthousiasm to look back. I began feeling silly.

"Are you late, hiding or at the wrong address?"

"Sorry...I thought you received my e-mail. I will be late. Should be there in 20 minutes or so."

(Wrong. He was there in double the time.)

"I would advise you to sit at the cafe, drink a glass of Chablis and enjoy the view while you're waiting."

He called a few minutes later.

"I'm so sorry is juss zat I needed to go to a pharmacie and today is so hard to find one, it's Sunday, so I had to go out of my way...I will not be long, 15-20 minutes..."

What could I say. I was there, I had nowhere to rush to, I told him it was fine. I'd wait. In the meantime, I moved into the cafe as suggested, it was middle of June, but as cool and overcast as though it were March, my hands were blue by now. But already, from the sound of his voice, I knew it wasn't going to be referred back to as Saint Dating Day.

"Almost at Concorde, then I need to take the line 12 for 4 stations."

"Don't slip while you run :p"

"I'll do my best :-)...shouldn't be much longer. Thanks for your extreme patience."

I called Laydi.

"Hey, he's running late, where are you?"

"In front of you."

I looked around, no sign of her.

"I'm looking, I'm looking....hold on...what are you wearing?"

"My trench coat and hat. I'm right in front of you, come on."

I stood up, stretched my neck...nothing.

"I think you're in front of the wrong cafe...can you see me?"

"Of course!"

The figure sitting next to the entrance, just outside the floor-length window turned around. It was wearing Lennon sunglasses, a hat and a beige trench coat.

"Damn you're good!!!"

She laughed and then turned back.

"I thought that the last guy to enter was him. I'll keep looking out for him. Good luck!"

He arrived not long after. Just-about-scarily tall, in dress shoes, jeans, striped white shirt and black blazer. He was so clean shaven I thought we'd squeak as we kissed bisou bisou. I knew then and there that this was going to be a not-my-kind-of-date.

He was a nice guy, he hadn't lied, he did everything right, asked the right questions, slipped a "pretty eyes" compliment, told a humorous anecdote or two, cited interesting facts about this and that, had something to say on a variety of subjects, but all this had me on the brink of boredom.

We sat there for an hour or so, I had to discretely look at my watch to believe it. While we ran self-commercials, Laydi managed to steal a few photos of us advertising to one another.

Finally, he suggested we go for a walk. I just wanted to go home, but considered it as my afternoon's worth of exercise. He let me lead and I took the liberty of walking in the direction of my house. As we both blabbed, I wondered whether I was difficult to please or whether attraction was as simple as it used to be when we were short of Sapiens. Had he been someone else, someone more like Jeremy Irons for instance, I would have been hooked to his every word...or would I? Had I finally become picky?! Had these months of single life paid off for my own good? I had always thought they would. With so much time spent away from the distractions of infatuation, I was better aware and perhaps better equipped to single out the people with whom I could really connect.

If it takes effort, it's not worth it. When you know what could be, it's lazy and sad to compromise.

Nice (boy for nice girl) asked whether I'd like to have dinner with him after I returned from vacation. I pondered whether he did so out of courtesy. Surely, he must have been bored by me too. Or maybe it was the pressure of being from a traditional background and going on late thirties. I answered with a vague perhaps. I was certain that the impending summer heat would bring along with it a nicer girl for this perfectly nice boy.

I went up to my home and sighed relief. This dating thing is not for me.

As with most things, I was proven wrong.

sixty-seven

19:37:51

I’m sleepless at Dubai International Airport.

Expect the unexpected. Days, weeks or months can pass by without nothing worth the time passing, but then suddenly, spectacularly, time stops and one after the other stories and encounters start making appearances.

The last few months in Paris have been life-marking. Paris brought to me what I had not anticipated. I am still digesting what had exactly happened since I had last left Beirut.

I had expected a period of bloom, but instead I had shriveled even deeper into myself (did not think that was possible after years of self-reflection!) and learned that I was really the kind of person I did not want to be: shy, docile, and fearful. It took months to get over the insecurities that had resurfaced all at once.

Hence my silence and my “morbid” rantings and ravings. However, I am glad to say that I had managed to redeem myself in the last week I had spent before my summer vacation. The unexpected happened. In a blink of an eye, I was no longer shy and no longer a prisoner of my fears and paranoias and life happened. Life pranced right in. I have so many stories to share that I do not know where to start. I haven’t even had the time to sit down and breathe, hence the use of waiting time at the airport.

I am drowning in my own…beautiful, spectacular and long-awaited…strange encounters of the sleepless kind.

sixty-six

05:41:58


I'm sleepless in Paris.


The refrigerator's cry of help, the typewriter rhythm of rain drops on the scales of zinc snaking up and over the roof, the clearing of lightly feathered throats, shy murmurs first, sharp chirps soon to follow, the sudden burst of wings flapping, the gentle snore across the room, the continuous hum of a chimney vent, the masturbatory coo of a lone pigeon, the termites in my stomach, the sound of a heavy car door closing.


A morning is being stitched together and - a celestial drone of an airplane - I feel like I'm the only girl in the world.


I wonder if just below me or across the river, someone else is feeling the exact same way and I wonder if that would be enough. I cannot imagine a one, a singular, a solo, being enough and I don't know how I ever could be in this time of abundance, consumption and careless disposal.


It is a matter of years. I envy those now in their early thirties. Their youth was slower and less confused. I don't even have the patience to listen to an older person speak: too many words over too long a stretch of time. I, who refuse to LOL BTW, have developed a hearing that runs out of battery after a couple of words. Full stop, and I recharge again, but I can only keep running for so long. When you hear too many becau--, bu--, wha--, you know you are interrupting too often and not listening enough. Has that ability been untrained out of me? Or have I just become disinterested beyond repair?


I don't even have the patience for mornings' stretches and yawns.


Power - password - play.


A contemporary veni, vidi, vici.


- The sound of garbage trucks - 

Whispering Cities: a dialogue between Paris and Beirut

First in-situ trial in Paris:

Sleepless in Beirut and أشغال جيونفسية hold hands

20:30:30


I'm Sleepless in Beirut and in Paris.


I have the pleasure to announce that Sleepless in Beirut and أشغال جيونفسية are collaborating together on a little project, that this time will actually be implemented.


"Whispering Cities: a dialogue between Paris and Beirut."


Keep your eyes on both our spaces for updates - conversation begins somewhere round mid-June.


A very very special thanks to Jad Baaklini for joining me...I promise to hold hands better!

sixty-five

23:05:59


I'm sleepless in Paris.


I have seen your face a hundred times, underneath the rain, in the dark and from a train, from a boat and from a plane, in my sleep and from behind my window pane.


I have smelled you on my sleeves and in my hair, in a thousand breaths you have exhaled and I've inhaled your every scent with every gasp and every sigh and I've licked your sweat off from my tearing eyes.


I've torn you down and built you up and put a rainbow in the sky, from nowhere to somewhere, and a moon behind the cotton ball boas that you wear on Saturday nights when you click your happy heels from Place Clichy to La Pigalle and lay me down across the Seine so I can come and go and come and come again.


Your face pale in the morning light, fresh and silent, stretching your womb and stomach to make way for rumbling trains and scuttling rats and bursting suitcases
and madmen
and nobodies
and nut-cases.


Your cheeks flushed from the sun or glistening with tears, you joy is endless, your sadness just the same and I wish I could make it all okay for me to leave you, and find you always there, crying and smiling, so we could cry and laugh together in the face of people I will never know, books I will never read, art I will never make...


I want to know you like I want to know myself. In the morning and after midnight, when we are both alone and it's quiet enough to whisper and draw our deepest secrets in the spirals of crottes de chien, in the circles of streetlights, in the squares of victories, in between the lines of rues de la...de la...


In dusty sickness and in blooming health, I do, Paris, I do.

sixty-four

00:25:33


I’m sleepless in Paris.


Last night – a tragicomedy, a by-product of French vineyards.


An extraordinary transformation took place, eight bottles of wine for each methuselah of truth, unspoken, unadvertised, just out there for everyone to swivel and smell.


Stereotypes were affirmed, hypocrites had their mug shots taken, archenemies were befriended, strangers became soul mates – social labels stood knee high to human complexity, looking up in wonder and fascination at what is at once simple, empirical and sophisticated, obscure.


Behaviour can be most revealing. She laughs after everything she says because she wants you to think that she is funny and easy-going. She laughs because she wants your mirror neurons to laugh with her. And you do. But take a second to think it through and you discover yours was a vocal expression standing in line behind LOL, a giggle in vain, a laughter for the sake of laughing because, well, this situation is quite sad and sadness at cocktail parties is most unseemly.


As she laughs and you laugh, your smiles speak of social conformation, but your eyes speak of different things. You don’t notice this explicitly, but you feel it. You feel discomfort, you feel a lack of connection, and you feel like you would rather talk to someone else, to someone whose eyes smile in sync with his or her lips.


To tell you the truth, I have never heard her laugh, seen her body laugh and when I laugh so hard I need to run to the ladies’ room, I feel her sadness burn my back.


It’s vain to call it jealousy, but I have been her and I know the burn of envy.


She is insecure about her height in a crowd of shoulders to her nose.


I have been insecure about my outdated Mango shirts in the glare of the latest DKNY must-haves. I wish I had recognized that insecurity earlier, early enough to learn to laugh with my body and laugh with one of the sweetest girls I used to know in school.


Our insecurities poison too many relationships to not be talked about.


I wish I could tell Pope that I always thought I was not pretty enough or well-dressed enough or French enough to be comfortable around him and his jet-setter friends. He denies being that shallow, but I only see him in that light, in that spotlight of beauty and glamour of which I will never be a part.


And it has poisoned our relationship; we avoid each other every time we are within view of each other, we don’t even make the effort to say “Hello” anymore.


I don’t want to be that insecure girl and I don’t want to see him in the reflection of shiny surfaces. I don’t want to see him. I choose not to deal with it.


I want to deal with them in secret; I do not want anyone to know: that I struggle, that I am vulnerable, that I am susceptible to countless petty paranoias.


But just in the same way I sit in a corner watching people drink and talk and try to cover up, other people watch me and they know. There is no use in pretending. Most of us have good X-ray vision for discrepancies between what we say and how we say it.


I think we should talk about it, rather than leave it at the mercy of Sauvignon or Pouilly-Fumé.


The highlight of my last night was a conversation that took place up on the roof.


“I like older men.”


“Why?”


“I think I have daddy issues.”


“Tu sais, je l’ai toujours senti.”


“C’est vrai?”


“Oui, parce que, moi aussi, je suis un peu comme toi. Daddy issues. J’étais toujours attiré par des hommes, plus que des femmes, en effet, les personnes qui prennent soin de moi.”


As soon as he said that a flash of “I wish I didn’t” appeared in his eyes. It’s a sensitive subject in the Arab community, I don’t need to stress on that. But I was touched: this wonderful person was opening up to me. He was a little anxious, unsure, but he did it. And I didn’t bite his head off. By the end of the evening…


“Quand est-ce que on va se voir?”


“Quand tu veux. J’ai toujours envie de t’écrire un message, mais j’ai l’impression que t’aura des choses plus interessantes à faire.”


“Je te dis: I really enjoy your company. If you want to do something, you will be a priority.”


If I knew how to do magic tricks, I would have made it rain little hearts.


That was all it took.


The highlights of Paris weren't the parties, the macarons, but the moments when a slightly trembling hand took mine and let it open a secret drawer that was kept in the bedroom when the party was happening downstairs.


Those are the only moments that feel real, that matter.

sixty-three

00:25:24

I'm sleepless on a Parisian rooftop.

German accent, intellectual talk, sounds Freudian: masturbation, underwear, fucking, drinks, girls.

American trying to speak French, trying to buy his image through his words.

Lebanese friend; I'm saying sorry for being distant, Lebanese girl, name and face in common, makes me ill at ease.

"It's okay, I just go with the flow, you know me, I don't complicate things"

But going back will be hard.

German girl, "If a Turkish guy from a football team hit on you, you'd be like yeah..."

"Shikidim, shikidim"

"He's gay, like openly"

"No, he's married"

Oh my, I hear my Mexican friend downstairs and people singing to Cindy Lauper.

I should go downstairs, flash my underwear to below the ladder...

Mexican guy arrives.

"Awesomness arrived!"

How do these parties work?

I have to go, don't want to be married to my phone.

sixty-two

20:45:02

I’m sleepless in Paris.

The sky is wearing the same hues and shades it did on that February afternoon when I first landed in Paris. The view out the window is the same and just as beautiful. It has been the same for over a hundred years.

Yet, what was once new is not. At about this time, everyday, I smell peppered steak (fish on weekends) and hear it sizzle in one of the kitchens below me. The Greek concierge, who prefers underwear to trousers, argues with his other Greek friends over dinner – their shadows mingle in the square of red light on the opposite wall. Whistles and screams from along the quai make their occasional visit over the rooftops. Later on, the Algerian woman will connect to Skype and her problems will echo up and down the void that tie the four buildings together. And someone will light up a spliff that will stink up the stairway. The two young men will leave for the evening, their little puppy will cry and I will run to my window to see his cute little puppy eyes and consider, for the Nth time, to put up a sign that says, “I can babysit your dog”.

Homeless David doesn’t scare me anymore; we look at one another knowingly. We know that the morning I stood freezing outside my door while he was lying beside it on a discarded mattress was the beginning of an urban relationship that will one day lead us to a proper conversation. The restaurant in my street, I have walked past so many times, that it is now rude to not say hello when I come and go.

The way I walk past the tourists at my metro station sets me apart and the vending machine is my point de repère to leave the final metro station the fastest way possible.

But I only own this much; the rest of the city reminds me that I am but a stranger and will always be.

Is it possible to belong anywhere in this world?

Belonging has ceased to be a place. Belonging is now a situation. It is a locus, an effective or perceived location.

What are the repercussions?

There aren’t any. It leads us to the here and now. It leads us to temporal contexts, situations of time, relationships of time, people of time, to a loss of responsibility. What was once will not be, no matter how many times you go back.

Look at Beirut, places are literally dying. Look at Paris, places are only shadows of what they used to be. Look at everywhere else – change is faster than change itself.

Forget where you come from, because that village you never lived in, that city you never knew completely, that destination you never visited.

We are a generation of situations. I look at a map and I can tell you where I lived a moment, but to go back there and find that the walls recognize me more than I do them is an emotion to be written about in the pages of history.

But here, I am talking about the city. Mountains will recognize you, trees that have not yet been uprooted will recognize you. But I’m talking about the city.

The city walls no longer speak of us, but Facebook walls do. They speak of people wanting to be known, be it by conforming or standing apart, they speak of people that want to be heard, be it by saying something or liking something else. They speak of want and thirst and hunger. They speak of roots up in the air. They speak of a search for ground, a yearning to belong somewhere, sometime even if for the span of that minute it takes you to look through your notifications.

It feels good to be liked.

It feels good to be written to.

It feels good to provoke reactions.

This is our situation. You only belong for as long as you’re being reacted to.

You belong to parties, to social circles, to trends, to labels, to brands. You belong to reactions. No consequences, no aftermath, no reputation on your heels – is this the final freedom?

It’s temporal freedom, it’s temporary freedom. But I’m talking about my city.

sixty-one

00:19:49

I’m sleepless in Paris.

When is life too short and when is it time to listen to age-old wisdoms?

Life is too short to be spent day-in and day-out in bed thinking about things you haven’t and things you aren’t.

Life is too short to let your fears eat at your experiences.

Life is too short to shut up when the words are crawling up your throat and tugging on your tongue and prying your lips open.

But if you have nothing to say, stay quiet.

If you have a really bad feeling about it, don’t do it.

If you have nothing and are a nobody, you have nothing to lose: do anything, stay in bed, watch TV, and do nothing.

Or everything.

What is loss? What is bad? What is a do and what is a don’t?

You ask so many questions that you are sitting on your answers.

The answers aren’t even answers, they are “what ifs”. And a “what if” is a question mark weighed down by a cannon ball, a ball that’s stuck in the pocket of your throat, a ball you wish you did not choose to swallow because it was impolite to spit it out.

But that’s a “what if” past-tense.

Mine is still a projection into space and time, a what if I ignore the over and over of “Don’t date your boss” and what if I don’t sit on that question for too long and what if I just proceed to go where my mind is going?

I am Wilde tempted. I am cat-killer-spree curious. I am Nike yearning to be reincarnated into something other than shoes and spandex.

“I know that it could be seen as out of line, but would you like to join me for a drink?”

Or.

“I’m having a house party, I’d love it for you to join us!”

“…Looks like no one showed up, it’s just going to be you and me…”

Or not. I’ll save this cheese for the +Rats.

“There’s this great exhibition, have you seen it?”

Of course not, you don’t live here. You can train of shame it back home too. “What if” is now less of a "WTF-are-you-thinking?"

A little Portuguese accent wouldn’t hurt my ears, a little bit of extra height to a man wouldn’t leave me short, a little laughter and April heat wouldn’t leave us cold, so I say, “Why don’t you just stand up and kiss him already?!”

Because it’s never that simple. There would be a fantastical build up. We would talk about work all night long. And then a Freudian slip of tongue, almost accidental. Or a handshake that doesn’t squeeze the whole palm, but presses on the inner and softly releases with the brush of two fingers. And in my fantasy, it takes just that.

But the handshake comes first, at the beginning of the day, before an afternoon long meeting, where the tables are arranged in a U to facilitate communication and lingering eye contact can confirm that the squeeze and brush weren’t accidental, and the corners of our smiles pull our faces into criminal partnership, Bonnie and Claudio, though our real names contrast, better.

And how am I so confident this would work? Because I am the author of this day-dream?

It’s that simple. You just know. The balloon may be invisible, but it takes up the space of the room and if he comes with the bristle of two days unshaved, I will pop it like a sicle. 

sixty

13:42:55

I’m a mess in Paris.

It has been so for some time now, this feeling of being at a loss, of being unable to, of putting up obstacles as soon as I jump one.

So I ask myself, what is that special place I yearn to be at.

Paris?

London?

Beirut?

I see hoards of tourists everyday take the same picture of Tour Eiffel, of Notre Dame, of statues and monuments that make up Paris. Paris is nothing but a pop-up postcard, a map of relics to an age long past, a large walk through museum with never-changing Parisian stereotypes. Paris is a marker-stick stuck in a river that moves an inch forward and bobs an inch backwards. It gives you the impression of taking you with it, but then pushes you back out.

London. London feels like a large river that carries you along, but doesn’t give you time to grab unto something. It impresses you with its speed and power, but it flows through you nonetheless and when you leave, you don’t retain, only the mud stains of dirty gritty Thames cling to you as reminders of what you did and what you saw and what you didn’t arrive to.

Beirut, a memory of strings undone and their ends shriveling into ends I can’t get hold off. Roots are rotten, friendships dried up, lovers withered – a lost paradise and I, a lost cause.

But that is all a made-up, that is nothing but a fantasy of someone sad. Places aren’t what they are said to be in Lonely Planet, they aren’t what they are marked out to be on a map, they aren’t friends’ stories, they aren’t what you previously experienced, they aren’t street names, nor corners, nor squares, nor houses. None of it matters.

The only place is inside your head and it is the place I think I have to go first, if I ever want to go anywhere.