Jasmine and Fire (38 page)

I understand now that it took going back to Beirut, finding my place there again, to feel more at peace in New York. Is it like those people who, when they meet The One, have to bust loose and sow their oats for a while to make sure they’re ready to go full speed ahead into their future, with the person they sense deep down is right for them? The analogy isn’t perfect. Cities aren’t people,
except in some ways. When it comes to cities, I realize now that I can’t commit to New York or to Beirut fully. I need to keep a life going in both places somehow, even if most of my day-to-day life is in New York. They’re both home, and I can’t give up either.

My mother said to me on the phone the other day that she doesn’t know of any people who talk as endlessly about their country as the Lebanese do: Lebanon this, Lebanon that. Oh, that beautiful country of ours, so warmly welcoming, such a rich culture, a close-knit family life, wonderful food, cosmopolitan people—don’t get us started. Lebanese living abroad never seem to let go of Lebanon, don’t shed their past quite as smoothly as some other immigrants do. So they keep going back to visit, once a year, every other year, twice a year. Often. And every time they go, what happens? Right—they can’t wait to leave.

This doesn’t apply to everyone, of course. I did get through a year in Beirut and could’ve stayed longer. Others I know have done the same, even moved back to Lebanon full-time after living in the States or elsewhere for years. But no doubt it can be an exhausting place—physically, emotionally.

Still, the tug is always there. In both directions.

Navigating my year in Beirut, easing my way from anxious to at-home in a challenging, feisty city, has put my New York life in perspective, too. In New York now, I’m less bothered by certain tiresome interactions, or annoyances like a subway-service disruption, or an Internet outage for an hour or two. Things are always worse somewhere else (in Beirut, for instance) and I can always escape to a happy place (well, Beirut again) even if just in daydreams or memories. Escaping the present moment, putting it in context, remembering that this minute and this square inch of space don’t have to mean the world, helps, even if it’s just a fleeting
thought. It keeps me afloat in difficult places, tough times. And those will always come along, anywhere.

I remembered that over coffee one afternoon in Beirut last fall, my mom’s cousin Afaf told me about her decision to return to Lebanon, after having moved to Washington, D.C., in her thirties, and spent three decades there. She still spends summers in D.C. teaching university art classes, as she does during the academic year in Beirut. She’d said to me, “The
tabkha
, the home-cooked dish, of life in Beirut plus life in the States is a good one—both places mixed in, a little of each.”

I’m also remembering how in my first couple of months in Beirut last summer and fall, I felt very much like the new kid, the stranger, the foreigner in social settings even though I’m Lebanese. When you feel that way, it’s hard to come across as intelligent, confident, in-the-know, the way you might on more familiar turf. Whatever confidence I thought I had gained in my New York life felt shaky in those early weeks, and I sensed all my shyness and self-consciousness bubbling back up, felt myself speeding back almost to square one. That feeling of being on unsure ground, having to find my footing all over again.

My New York friend Dave told me recently that he feels sorry for his co-worker’s Italian husband, who was a tough and respected journalist back in Italy but, at social gatherings in New York, just seems “happy and simple.” Dave doesn’t speak Italian and can’t interact with him on the same linguistic turf; nor can many New Yorkers the guy meets. The Italian stumbles along in broken English at parties his wife drags him to, in an environment he isn’t yet used to. Instead of seeing the guy as the sharp, jaded journalist his friends and colleagues back home know him to be, Dave experiences him as a foreigner who doesn’t speak English well, always
seems out of his element, and is trying to project a positive attitude around his wife’s New York friends, hence the “happy and simple” impression. At least Dave is self-aware enough to realize he’s seeing the Italian in this surely deceptive way. But it’s still hard for him to access the confident adult, the seasoned journalist behind the smiley, linguistically shut-out husband.

Switching from one setting to another, it takes a while to realign your insides with your outside, and sometimes it doesn’t happen, or not for too long, and then it’s time to leave. I was lucky that eventually it did happen for me in Beirut again—I had a hunch it might if I stuck it out—all these years after I’d had to adjust from my Beirut self to my new reality in the States.

I knew all along that I still loved Beirut. I just didn’t know if I could live with it again.

Is it
too simple to say home is love? Not necessarily romantic love. It could be love of a house or street or neighborhood, or self-love, or another kind—just a deep feeling of contentment and ease. For me, for years, New York has been the place where I’ve felt that the most, even when part of me always yearned for Beirut. Over the years, the Beirut of my imagination has been its own kind of home. But I learned that the real Beirut could be home, too: not just because it used to be home long ago, but because my feelings for it haven’t died, and because Beirut, in all its craziness, is the type of city I like. I sense myself there, the way I felt when I first visited New York and still feel. New York and Beirut are, as I’ve discovered and rediscovered, my kind of cities: densely packed, mixed-up, crammed with nooks and crannies and, truth be told, some amount of chaos and unpredictability.

I guess home is where you are—not just physically. It’s where
you feel most yourself. I think to be really at home means having a relationship with that place, a relationship that isn’t necessarily dependent on who else happens to be living there. But romantic love can make a place seem like home, at least for a time. Even more, friends can. Or one person, a handful of people, can start to build the foundations of home, if they welcome you in and help you ground yourself: the friendly and easygoing neighbor, the warm and smiling grocer, the funny and tough-love teacher.

I remember an unpleasant interaction with a snotty store clerk in Beirut one day not long after I’d arrived last summer, her frosty tone sending me into a low mood and sharpening my sense of awkwardness and alienation. I jotted this note to myself later:

In the world there are people who will ease your way and others who won’t. And you’ll ease the way for some and not for others. You’ll eventually forget about the ones who froze you out, and they’ll forget you. The world is for you and for the ones who roll out the carpet, even if it’s tattered. They’re scattered all over. And if you look carefully, they can help you find your way home, wherever you are
.

That sounds too much like a self-help pep talk. Hide it from anyone peering over your shoulder. But I admit I’ve gone back to read this note: in Beirut, in New York, in other places, whenever I’ve needed to. Always secretly, as I’ve wound my way through the city, alone or uncertain. And on my way home.

Recipes

Z
INGOL

T
ANGY
C
HICKPEA AND
B
ULGUR
S
OUP

Zingol is one of those dishes you’re unlikely to encounter in Lebanese restaurants or even in most homes; it turns up now and then in certain villages, and I still daydream about the fragrant, soul-warming bowl I tasted in the town of Hammana (actually it was two bowls, since the woman who cooked it insisted, in typical Lebanese fashion, that I have another). The presentation is especially appealing—the small chickpeas and bulgur spheres floating together in a lemony broth—although as with kibbeh balls, I had to practice rolling the bulgur mix into uniform, tight little marbles. But even if some balls fall apart into the broth, nothing is lost
.

Serves 4

H
RISSEH

C
INNAMONY
L
AMB
S
OUP

Hrisseh is often served for the Feast of the Assumption on August 15, commemorating the day when, according to the Eastern Orthodox church, the Virgin Mary ascended to heaven. It would be a shame if
this lusciously meaty, rich soup were saved for just one annual holiday, and luckily some of my relatives like to indulge in it year-round. The exquisitely talented, dearly departed Fahimeh, who cooked for my mother’s cousin Sami and his wife, Najwa, discovered I love hrisseh dearly, and so I’d be invited over when she made it. Prepare this on a day when you have lots of work to do at home, since the soup needs to simmer for several hours until the lamb falls apart into tender shreds
.