Words We Wrote But Never Published
One year after the Beirut explosion, I'm still trying to find the right words. I know I'm not the only one.
A few days ago, my dear friend Maya—another Lebanese-American journalist and a force to be reckoned with—asked me to read something that she wrote for today. It opened with a passage that she had written a mere three weeks after the Beirut explosion—and then a confession that she had tucked it away, and promised to revisit it one year later.
“Three weeks on, I am still filled with rage. But when it roils near the surface, its bubbles pop pathetically, hissing: ‘Nothing will change.’
Instead, my friends and my family will leave. My colleagues, neighbors, interview subjects, exes, favorite shopkeepers, my rivals and my inspirations will either be forced to emigrate or be so exhausted by trying to exist that their light will simply perish.
It is this that pushes me, every day, to tears.”
Read the whole essay here.
Her words—and honesty—made me remember words that I had also written (but never published) around the same time. It felt like the only way to try to make sense of the fact that while I was wrapping up an interview in a quiet garden in North London, dozens of the people that I love were being chucked across their homes as the largest non-nuclear blast in history sucked the oxygen out of the room, turning a city we had once called home together inside out. I wrote them in spurts, typically between long bouts of staring into my phone—which had taken on new meaning as my only connection to Lebanon—playing and replaying footage of the explosion that felt unreal, reassuring everyone who asked that everyone I knew was “physically, fine” all the while wondering all of the metaphysical ways that everyone that I knew must be anything but fine.
While some of the paragraphs flowed through my fingers with the raw and unfettered emotion of a writer not worried about publication, others stopped short with half sentences and incomplete thoughts, not quite ready to come into the world. It represented how I felt at the time—disjointed, alternating between overflowing with anger and sadness, wondering why it felt like a crater had been carved out of my insides as well when I was almost 5,000 kilometers away in a city that still functioned, in a house that had four walls that hadn’t crumbled on me and windows that hadn’t shattered into weapons that had suddenly decided to slice my skin. I had every reason to feel grateful—everyone I knew had survived the explosion and most even remained physically unharmed—and yet, I still felt gutted and guilty. I also convinced myself that these feelings were minuscule compared to those of people who were still searching for their loved ones, wondering how they were going to rebuild their homes in a country that is constantly coming up with new ways to fall apart, rebuild their families when there would also be missing pieces. So, I tucked it away, and told myself that I would also revisit it ahead of the anniversary—a day far that felt far enough in the future that of course it would finally make sense.
As journalists, we are trained to treat anniversaries as opportunities, moments to steer the public towards the issues that we (often secretly) hold in our hearts. We work in an economy of hot takes and opinion pieces, navigating our course through a media ecosystem that values empathy only insofar that it can be clickbait, that often rejects our ideas simply because they are happening somewhere else, to someone else. Every year, we have to work harder and harder to defend why these moments matter, to come up with a reason as to why these events are relevant to the present day before they fade into memories with straightforward narratives, and lose the complicated details that make them real.
But it is funny how this practice has convinced ourselves that 365 days will magically bring us to the right words to perfectly describe the aftermath of an event that forever changed so many of us, that one rotation around the sun will be enough to transform our deepest emotions into prose that perfectly encapsulate both that day and the year that came after. In reality, it is messier than ever. It feels strange to be physically present in a country that is (perhaps pretending) to go back to normal, to have the privilege to be able to imagine life the way it once was while knowing that a country that is also a part of me is still stuck in that darkness. I am told that I should feel lucky, but instead I feel angry that some people can live such carefree lives while others cannot.
Perhaps it is fitting that I couldn’t find the original words that I wrote but never published. So, this little piece of writing is dedicated to anyone else who is feeling messy and emotionally disorganized, whether you are physically in Lebanon or carry Lebanon in your heart. It is for everyone who is logging off to protect their hearts from traumatizing videos and images senselessly shared on social media, who also might not yet have the words and are wisely taking today to be with themselves and their loved ones. It is for those curious about Lebanon (in which case, I recommend you read Lebanese writers who have found the words, such as this piece by Nasri Atallah, this by Lina Mounzer and this by Anthony El Ghossain) and those who have every reason to be tired of hearing about Lebanon. Wherever you may be—physically and mentally—I love you, and hope you’re taking care of yourself.