A Heart So Full It Feels As If It's Exploding

There is nothing quite like writing a place that you love as it is actively being destroyed.

I’m writing a novel right now and a good chunk of it takes place in Lebanon. Is it the first part of the book or is it told in a series of flashbacks? I don’t know that yet, but what I do know is that it is my old stomping grounds, the place where I trace my roots, became the journalist and human that I am today and fell in love several times over. I fell in love with people, I fell in love with a language and culture that are a part of who I am and most of all I fell in love with a place that contained so many multitudes that they closest way that I can describe it is a heart so full it feels as if it’s exploding.

There is nothing quite like writing a place that you love as it is actively being destroyed. One minute you’re fantasizing about research trips—your friends are texting you that flights are cheap, that you always have a place to stay, and even your husband (with his newly-minted British passport) considers coming with you, and you start talking about the food that you’re going to eat and the places that you’re going to go together.

I thought about my novel—the “fictional” characters who have become so real to me, really just amalgams of people I love who I’ve been moved and inspired by, who’ve made me laugh and cry and driven me crazy. Above all else, my novel is about falling in love—again, and again and again.

When you write about love, you want to do that love story justice, and loving a place is just as important as loving a person. What did the building look like, and why was it falling apart, and more importantly, how was it keeping itself together? Who walked the streets, and bumped into each other and created chaos and fell in and then out of love, but still had to run into that person again and again because Beirut is Beirut and that’s how it goes, endless chaos always keeping you on your toes? I want to remember the way that the chaos made me feel at home after too long in London, What does the air smell like? You close your eyes and try to remember, but it’s been two years and you’re itching to go back.

The next minute, all you have are your memories.

I first moved to Lebanon in 2014—it was at a time when ISIS was staking its claim around the Middle East, and frankly it felt as if Lebanon was next. It felt like the country was fragile and could fall at any moment, that it was my last chance to experience a place that was a part of me before it was overrun by the Islamist militants that the US was very committed to destroying.

Now, it is being destroyed by Israeli airstrikes that the US is very committed to funding fueled by a genocide in Gaza that the US is also very committed to funding. Harris/Walz 2024! No one ever really gave a fuck about the Middle East, did they? Over the past month, one quarter of the country has been displaced and half of the country has become uninhabitable. Almost every journalist that I know is there right now and almost every non-journalist that I knew there has left.

I am struck with the feeling of helplessness. What is the point of creating work about our humanity when our humanity is called into question? I wanted to wait to pick up this newsletter until I had something encouraging to say, but I find that incredibly difficult these days. People tell me that journalism is important, but I’ve been doing this for fifteen fucking years in hopes that it will make people stop killing each other and it hasn’t. What is the point when people switch off? Algorithms bury us when we try to talk about war crimes, and apparently having strong opinions about a year of genocide makes us completely unemployable. Being silenced works in a myriad of complex ways.

So, again—I’m wondering: what is the point of words? I’m thinking of doctors patching up wounds when we could just stop airstrikes, sleepless, trying to stop the bleeding when the powers that be will only keep puncturing the skin. What is the point of sounding the alarm, when people don’t care? Or, perhaps worse, when people feel so helpless because the horrors keep on going. All I know is that sometimes reading someone else’s words can make me feel less alone, so I just want you to know this:

If you’re feeling exhausted, you’re not alone.

If you’re wondering what we can possibly do to move forward in this world, you’re not alone.

If you’re struggling with the absurd cognitive dissonance of living in a place that is not crumbling while others are being destroyed, you’re not alone.

If every time you think of Lebanon, your heart is so full it feels like exploding, you’re not alone.

What do you want to know? Tell me, and I’ll tell you.

Anna