seventy-two

12:09:13

I’m still chained to my bed in Paris.

His “precautionary read” was The Economist. Serious. I was seriously hoping it was going to be a novel, a classic, but perhaps he has already devoured them all.

I arrived five minutes later than 18:20. I got out of the metro, moths in my light stomach. I’m doing this. I’m doing this. I cajoled myself into rounding the corner. I noticed him immediately. He looked like the photo, perhaps slightly better. Definitely older. The moths in my belly batted their wings against the glass globe. I took a deep breath to cool them down.

He was drinking Schweppes. I was reminded of Uma Thurman lusciously mouthing, “I want to have Schweppes with you” and hoped that it wasn’t a discrete message he was sending me.

He didn’t stand up. I sat next to him. At first, it felt like a casual business meeting. His whole look was business. Except for his jeans. They must have been as old as I was. Light blue and soft. A no hit and miss.

He told me his story. He was indeed a Yale alumni, with a degree in literature, who then went on to do something great in one of the world’s largest corporations. Sooner than later, he realized that “great” and “corporation” don’t walk hand in hand. Bad things are planned seated around large tables in the shadow of the public eye, the rumours that we hear are true, he confirmed. He is married, but separated, and a father. His manner of speech was calm and contained, I was almost entranced. Now it was my turn.

My story. My story was not as long or as fascinating, but we discovered that we did indeed have things in common. Not credentials, not experience, but a certain espoir en tête and a certain disenchantment with the way things were currently going. It’s the ability to balance the two, to struggle with the sway between naïve hope and total abandonment that kept us going. At least that, we had in common.

Was I attracted to him? He had nice hands and a soothing voice, but that was as far as I could go. I was more enthralled by his overall character, an acquired calmness. I sat there looking out unto the buildings bathed in orange sunlight, smiling inwardly at the circumstances of this afternoon. Perhaps I’m too easily impressed by titles and such, but I don’t blame myself too much about it. For some, meeting Ke$ha would do it, for others, a war hero. It is the company of great minds (great and mind being relative) that stimulates us to aspire to something, even if that something is a second cup of coffee or Schweppes.

We said goodbye, that we’d keep in touch, that September was just around the corner, that it would not hurt to meet again. It had been a pleasant afternoon, cooler and more contained than the rush through the streets with Lucifer, and I was willing to leave it all to the future, once more.

As he disappeared into the distance, I sat down in the nearby square to let it all sink in. I was early for my next rendez-vous.

“C’est bon, je suis a l’heure, je prendrai le metro. Le resto n’est pas loin de Chez Prune, on peut se rencontrer devant.”

“Ca marche. Je pars de chez moi. Bisous”

I clicked my heels (I didn’t), and descended into the mouth of the metro.

the in-between: mum's the word

20:47:34

I'm sleepless and numb.

I know there is hope because I looked away from all the violent scenes, even the subtly painful ones. I could not bear to see pain so up close, inches away from me on the screen.

I look at people and I feel nothing. Absent. I look at the one I used to love and I feel loss and lost. Cold.

I kiss. I sleep. I work. I touch. I eat. I pee.

It's all mechanical now. It's all procedure. 

My only joy is riding the bike through the streets, I only stop for red lights and only sometimes. Partial freedom. Unearned, but paid for. So I feel free.

I look at people in the metro and I know that we could be okay if we had more space between us. I look at eyes not meeting, hips touching. I put the volume louder and hold my breath. What is this sickness of the people? How much space do I need to look someone in the eye and smile?

I'm far, far away. Nobody calls me. I slow my breath, close my eyes and keep my hiding place secret. I don't want to know that I'm hiding. And hiding what? From whom?

How can you show truth? How can you show a big word with lots of meaning? How can you show an intention, an intention that wavers, that runs ahead, that slips away?

Blank page. Black hole. White blindness.

I don't want to be this way. I don't need to be this way. I could be better. I would be better off on my bicycle going off into the distance forgetting who I ever was and ever wanted to be. 

Numb like numb gums, sad like lone cum, dead like chewed gum...

seventy-one

10:32:15

I’m chained to my bed in Paris.

It’s winter again. I call it winter, they call it fresh air, but I miss the sun already. I shouldn’t complain though, the memory of the smell of sweaty June in the metro still makes me turn my head towards the open window. Better the cool of wine cellar than the oasis illusion of a saj oven.

Sunday. Hot sticky no escape Sunday. My suitcases were packed and I was ready to exit the steamy womb of my soon to be ex-home.

I met Lucifer in front of the fountain. We were going to have some dripping gelato.

Lucifer was a mutual friend. I’d hear of him from hims and hers and just a few days ago, we had finally met.

He was an interesting looking type. Short and skinny, a few couple years my senior, black hair peppered with white, Italian. He had an interesting way of looking at things and of talking. We’d chat, silence would present itself, we’d turn to someone else, he’d reappear, we’d chat again and so on. Never empty words, and I liked that.

As we walked towards the ice-cream shop we’d never find, we talked about everything. I remember my mom would ask me what I talked about with people I’d see.

I’d say “Everything”.

“But specifically?”

“Everything.”

Well, mainly about everything about ourselves. Random things on every subject.

The heat reflecting off the stone walls, the asphalt, the pavement, the metal poles, the people, off each other was becoming unbearable. And with the ice-cream shop nowhere within our sight, Lucifer took us by the leash and to Café George on the roof of Centre Pompidou.

I had never been there for drinks and welcomed the idea of filling a checkbox on the Wallpaper* list (pure speculation here).

He ordered a beer and I had a flashback to some lazy day on the beach back home and ordered some pineapple mix cocktail. We sat there and sweated. The conversation escapes me now, but I was certainly much more absorbed by it than I was with Nice (boy for nice girl).

But then Lucifer, being the Italian devil that he was, touched my nose.

I lost my balance. Was this a date?! Or was this Italian for “You smell nice?”. I’m not trying to compliment Le Grand Nez of the perfume I was wearing that day, but a few minutes later he leaned forwards to smell my neck.

Let me rewind a little. Earlier on, I had commented, innocently, promise, on his perfume. It wasn’t his. It was Botticelli’s. I love that scent and I often find myself singling it out on the street. There is always someone wearing it…

So here I was being touched and smelled. How do I get myself in these situations? I did not have an ounce of hidden intention behind the gelato invitation, I smiled not to flirt but to facilitate social interaction, to show my interest and agreement in what he had to say, to show my pleasure in his company.

I’ve been told I smile too much. Too much. But then they try to correct it by saying it’s a good thing. It’s not a good thing. It gets my nose touched and my neck smelled.

I always arrive at the question: how can a woman be friendly to a man without giving him false signals? I’d sincerely appreciate a clear and direct answer. But I guess there isn’t any.

I didn’t speak Italian, I didn’t touch his nose back. But I might have over-complimented his hair. It really was the coolest hair I had ever seen. Maybe that’s Italian, though probably Mediterranean, for “I’m into you”.

We had lost track of time, I had to go home or else I’d be late to meet with Ambassador.

We decided to see each other on Sunday rather than September. Why wait to find out if we were really centuries apart? Ambassador had called earlier that day to confirm our date at 18:00 at “Les Esplanades”. I knew from the sound of his voice that it was going to be a my-kind-of-a-date.

Hence, I had to rush my time with Lucifer. He insisted on inviting me, I eventually obliged. Having no change didn’t help either.

We took the lift back to the world below. And as we were walking towards the main hall, we got caught up in a crowd, I turned towards him, he looked at me and we kissed. Visitors and parents with kids walked by us while we acted out a scene fit for none other than a commercial for “Find your true love in Paris”. It was so bad a cliché that it was good, as good as a performance piece meters away from the famous piazza that attracts thousands of artists yearly.

But we weren’t artists, we were Ceasars of the moment.

For his size, he was quite strong. He kept on highlighting this strength, perhaps to compensate for his short stature, either by lifting me up in the air or by squeezing all the air out of me. It had its charm.

We walked/ran all the way back to mine, with intermittent pauses to catch our breaths and hydrate one another. By the time we reached, we could smell beyond our perfumes. Pure pheromones and sun juice.

“When do you return?”

“In a couple of weeks.”

“Will I see you again?”

“We’ll keep in touch.”

Even though I had carelessly welcomed this break from lipstinence, I wasn’t sure I would welcome it again. I thought I’d leave it to the future.

We said goodbye and I ran upstairs to freshen up for official date one, unofficial date two.

“Looks like I’ll be a little late, will try and be there 18:20”

“I took along precautionary reading material. Reflex of experience. A.”

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.