Category: Home (to me)

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Cheers to coffee shops & winter songs

I’m currently sitting in a coffee shop, drinking my two hours-old coffee, just finished binge-eating a chocolate coffee piece of cake, and getting ready to leave in 30 minutes to see my friends.

It’s raining outside, and I’m listening to Coffee Breath by Sofia Mills and looking at the people around me. My problem is that I do not see without my glasses, so I probably looked too much at a few people, which made them feel uncomfortable, but that’s fine. I have the flu and sneezing like crazy with a runny nose, so I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable myself.

I’m also laughing because I promised myself to write achievements and resolutions, and I’m not going to today, so lol, there’s a chance I will not commit to that either. It’ll just haunt my guts forever or until I write them down. Cava.

Crazy by Pasty Cline just came on shuffle. It’s the perfect song for a rainy and cold night, especially without you. It makes me feel like we’re dancing somewhere in a wooden cottage, like the ones we see in dark movies, in some forest, in some foreign country, totally isolated from all sorts of human-y things, just you and me, dancing with only the light of a chimney. Maybe a white carpet under our feet, feeling a bit hazy, my head on your shoulder, and hearing trees rustling with the heavy wind and rain. But we’re dancing, so it’s okay. We do not care about the chaos outside. We’re dancing the chaos away.

“Crazy for thinking that my love could hold you”

Crazy – Patsy Cline

I am currently stuck somewhere in the 60s, in the fuzziness of it all, somewhere between Beatlemania and Woodstock, protesting war and hunger and injustice and children abuse and gender inequality. I was free, so unapologetically free.

See, I always felt like I never belonged to this crazy generation. I always felt like I was somehow born in the 50s, living my teen years somewhere in London, and then living the civil war in Lebanon until the 80s, reporting as a war journalist. I somehow died during the war, either by reporting melancholy news or by fighting for justice. I have it all scripted, written out in my mind, of how I actually was and what I used to do. I truly believe in this, physically, mentally, and everything.

I really lived through that, and not through whatever inaneness I live now. I can feel it in my bones, or maybe I have wanted it so much for so many years that I now believe in it. Whichever is, I belong then, humming the Patsy song, taking a break from the revolution in a wooden cottage in a forest somewhere, with you.

I need to leave in eight minutes. Leaving you with the thought.

Hope you have a noncrazy evening.

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Teta,

Hey teta, i miss you

Teta, I can’t seem to take you off my mind. My beautiful beautiful teta. I can’t believe you’re not here, I can’t believe you don’t exist anymore, like you were never there, like I never got to hold you, I never got to listen to you talk, I never got to smile at you, like you never got to smile at me.

I see you everywhere, in every small step I take, in every sunshine and every darkness, I see you when I’m at my happiest, when I’m at my strongest, and you break me to pieces. You bring me back young, stupid, frail. I come back to you with the puffiest eyes and most exhausted lungs, gasping for air, begging you, to please take it easy on us, whoever you left behind. We’re all waiting for you to come back.

I remember dancing a month ago, back in Tbilisi, lights dimmed and the stone walls of my apartments giving me comfort, street lights flickering from my big windows, a cool breeze brushing my cheeks, grizzling my neck and falling all the way to my thighs, fading music from the street downtown heard all the way to my Armenian and calm neighborhood, and I danced, barefoot, wearing a short black dress and a golden anklet, with my red lipsticks and hair down, and I looked in the mirror, and I saw you looking at me, and I broke down crying, because I just realized, seeing you in the mirror only means that you no longer exist outside it.

And this has been happening, a lot. I see you in my brightest moments, when I’m laughing the most, when I feel like my heart may explode from joy, I see you, and my heart clenches, and I go back to my ebony pit, where I am sitting, with legs folded, rocking myself to sleep, shivering from the cold, scared of the damp room I am in, begging my way to see you.

I dreamt of you a few months ago. You were peeling prickly pears and putting them in purple bowls, exactly like you used to do when we were young, back in your old house in Qana. you were in a white kitchen, and I came to you and you hugged me, and as I chocked back tears, I said: “but teta, you don’t really remember us”, because you weren’t very remembering in your last days, and you told me: “you, I will never forget you.”

I hope so teta, because I will never forget you. I wish I can, because it will make everything so much easier to forget you, but I don’t think I can. Today, I visited your grave, and I didn’t cry, and I thought to myself, maybe I’m finally overcoming your death. But right now, as I was telling my best friend that I was at the village and I visited you, she asked me: “your grandma is back in the village?” It was a question asked in the moment, totally forgetting that you died, and it’s been 30mins, and I haven’t stopped crying.

Oh what I do to bring you back, not just for me, but for dad, you were all he got. He loved you so much, to a point where I never thought you would think of leaving him.

I love you teta, that I know. I love you a lot and I hope you’re happy. I hope you’re looking down at me with your green eyes and wholesome smile and big nose, proud of who I become. I know you don’t approve of so many things I do, but I also know that I’m learning, and that despite, I will find my way.

I wish you love my teta, love we were never able to give you enough of. You always said that you wanted to die, no matter how much we gave you. I hope you got what you wanted, I hope you’re getting the love you deserve.

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A peace of morning

A peace of morning was written on October 8, 2022.

I’m at this fancy hotel café, drinking sparkling water, waiting for my Belgian waffles and shakshuka, and I can hear crows.

Odd world, do you not agree?

Last week has been, well, not a typical week of the life of nour. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still uptight as fuck, but I tried to tune down my overthinking, and I lived a little.

I’ve been in Georgia for eight days now, walking in every nook and cranny until my feet bleed, listening to the noise of the city, and my music. I made so many friends, saw incredible nature, ate good food, went out on a date with a Russian guy, almost went out with a Georgian guy, visited Armenia, and Georgia’s countryside, and got a tattoo.

Remember the compass tattoo I mentioned briefly two years ago? Well, I finally got it. And I am absolutely in love with it.

It was all so sudden. I was with my American friend shopping at the flea market – which I am obsessed with by the way – and he just had the most remarkable exotic tattoo on his thigh, so I complimented it, and he told me that he actually did it here in Tbilisi. The tattoo artist is from Belarus, and she moved three months ago to Georgia and her work is nothing I’ve ever seen. So I booked an appointment on the same evening, and I got my compass (!).

For those of you who do not know the story of the compass, I’ve always suffered from existential and identity crisis, meaning, I never know who I am, what I want, or if this is really what I want from my life. I am scared, and anxious, most of the time, and I am forever searching for safety.

What is safety? Well, for me, safety is people, most of the time.

And as we all know, people leave, so when you associate your safety with people, you constantly find yourself unsafe and scared. And if you associate your safety with a place, you feel stuck, and being stuck is another crisis for me. So, as you see, I am still searching for safety.

And that is why I wanted to get a compass as a tattoo. Because a compass guides you to where you want, it takes you to the one thing you are searching for. And I want it to guide me to safety. My compass tattoo is a reminder for me that, on my darkest days, in my bleakest thoughts, I will look at it, and I will know that one day hopefully, it will guide me home.

Poetic, is it? Sorry, I’m just feeling serene. Currently, I am listening to I am scared of commitment by Jadal, which is ironic, and my breakfast i here. After breakfast, I am going to the flea market, for the third time this week :), and then visiting some abandoned haunted houses, then maybe meeting a friend over coffee.

The weather is magical, at least to me, there is no sun, and I am wearing a sweater. It’s a well day spent Saturday.

Adios now, I want to eat.

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Good morning from Tbilisi

Good morning from Tbilisi was written on October 3, 2022 (but never completed).

Good morning, bonjour, დილა მშვიდობისა. it’s a chilly yet sunny day in Tbilisi, and i’m feeling so tipsy on life.

Pouring down my Cappuccino Vienna, I am just observing the beauty around me. I am currently sitting at Santino Modcoffeebar, a Paris-like cafe in the middle of Tbilisi. To my left, a man is eating Shakshuka and smoking an e-cigarette, which makes me suspicious that he might be Arab or Lebanese.

Next to him sits a very interesting man with a very long Vikings-like beard, eating some sub-sandwich, with a stray dog looking at his sandwich, and the man eating Shakshuka throws him some of his food because he obviously didn’t like his Shakshuka. But every time the man feeds the dog, the dog returns to the Viking man because the dog associated that looking at the Viking man’s sandwich will get it food.

Fascinating, no?

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It’s November

It's November

It’s November folks, and I just noticed that the last time I wrote here was August, which means that the last time I had a free moment to reflect was August. Wtf?

It wasn’t the last time I wrote, as I have four drafts that I will be sharing in a bit, but I thought first to write my usual interludes. I won’t give you reasons this time; I will not give you excuses. I am learning to stop feeling guilty over things I cannot control and stop overthinking and assuming that people will be upset. Because let’s face it, who the fuck really cares if I write here or if I don’t, except me?

I’ve grown a lot since August, and I tell you, a lot has happened. I traveled to Georgia and Armenia as a holiday, and I went to Egypt on a work mission, and I just celebrated my 25th birthday yesterday.

I have a lot to tell you. I have a lot to tell you about me, about things that are changing in me, about the storms and the rain and the voices that are actually easing up, about the taste(s) of freedom and certainty I got to experience, about my grandma who keeps haunting me, about him. I have a lot to tell you, changes that I cannot believe I passed through, people that I have let in, and people that I have let out. About space, about culture, about my switched thinking of how we should be, of how I should be. Can you believe that I’m actually drinking diet iced tea?

Fyi, for those who don’t know me, I do not drink iced tea, never. I’m drinking iced tea now as I write this, and it is not the first time I have drank iced tea in the past weeks. I am telling you this to measure the scale of change I have passed through.

Oh, and I got two tattoos. hehe. One of them is the compass that I briefly mentioned at the beginning of this blog. I want to talk about my tattoos, and show you them, but in a separate post.

For now, it’s November 2, 2022; I am 25 and a day, I am drinking diet peach-flavored iced tea at the office, and I am listening to She Passed Away Alone At Sea by Owsey, on repeat. I have an insane workload, but I finished most of the priorities and thought to myself, you deserve a break. I’m meeting my university friends after work, and it’s raining heavily, and my car is parked 5mins walking distance from the office, so that will be fun. I can see a rainbow just behind the mountains, and the music is consuming me.

It’s been a nice birthday week, even though yesterday I cried a lot. I had a beautiful birthday pool party on Sunday, organized by a wholesome being, and I had a lovely family dinner yesterday, and my sisters made the cookies I like, and today my colleagues at work surprised me with a birthday cake. My university friends will also probably celebrate my birthday today, and I am grateful.

It’s not all rainbows and unicorns, for sure. My heart is aching for a certain somebody in my life that I care about more than anything, but I am trying to let them deal with their problems without letting it affect me as much as it is right now, because, that’s how it should be. I’m trying.

Action points from my end:

  • Write a Georgia/Armenia overview
  • Write a Cairo overview
  • Write about my grandma
  • Write about him
  • Write about my tattoos
  • Keep on writing
  • Plan my Syria trip in two weeks

Also, it’s Christmas soon. yey.

How about you? You okay? Any exciting/nonexciting things to share with me? I would love to listen.

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Newyorker but not in Newyork

Newyorker is a café, with bookish interior and torn couches, nestled one minute away from a very busy street full of anarchist-bohemian bars.  It’s a chill café, and it was my go-to place three years ago, where I spent all my free time in. It was nice, quiet, close to home, and had godly awful coffee. 

I used to go there almost every day, accompanied with a friend studying med at university. Whenever I finished work I would just meet him at Newyorker and we just work/study our night away. We had daily work/study dates for almost six months, until the pandemic hit, and I kind of pulled a nour on him and ruined our friendship for personal reasons I will not tell you. 

It was nice, still is. Today, I met up with him again at Newyorker, and we just rekindled the  sparkles we had, and I  absolutely enjoyed every second. He’s a medical person, and I am obviously not, and that is literally the core of all of our conversations, him calling the heart some shit like myocardium and me telling him that ice cream is probably injected with  a deadly bacteria that will make us grow a third leg. 

And we just laugh. He makes fun of me crying for absolutely no reason, and I make fun of him for his failed love life, and it gets as dark as you can imagine.

He tells me the most random stories he faces at the hospital, and I just ramble about God knows what, and I just ask him to tell me about suicidal cases because, lol, they fascinate me.

His car’s name is Lokman, and it’s a transgender car with he/him as pronouns. The car is red, slow, and makes the weirdest noises – but we associated the noise with how vocal and empowered Lokman is in the vehicle trans society. I didn’t have a car then, so Lokman was in charge of roadtrips, from driving to eat delicious shawarma in Aley, to stargazing in a dead end road in Mansourieh.

My friend knew all stars constellations and could tell each’s star’s age, function, and which zodiac sign it falls under. He’s smart like that, he would stay stuff like: “so this place we are in is usually a well known place for horny and high couples. So if you hear any noise different that Lokman’s, please do dismiss and keep focusing on the Gemini star to your upper right.”

It was simple, and I like it. After our little meetup tonight, I drove back home with a smile on my face, blasting Mr. Brightside and feeling refreshed. It was nice to go back to a time where I wasn’t so grownup and did not really understand the world as it is. 

Also, interlude, but have I ever told you about my undying love for betrayal songs? Like Jolene? Back to Black? Bust Your Windows? Angel in Disguise? Jelous? Heaven-sent anthems. If you have a song about betrayal, or a person loving 

I am feeling young again. I know I am only 24, but the past two years made me feel like I am growing 10 years in a month, like I need to act like I know what I am doing and what I am saying, when I really have trouble walking straight and not dropl over strawberry tartes served at a high level reception. 

Enough about me. How about you? Any good/bad things happening with you? Would love to hear them over coffee, or a 50cm long pizza and a dozen eclairs – I’m just PMSing, so please be nice with me.

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Siri, play Summertime Sadness

Summertime sadness by Lana Del Rey is playing on my headphones as I write this.

I have been thinking,

And for all of you who would probably say

“Do you usually not think?”

No, I do. Think.

But lately, I have been thinking

About safety in cold nights

Safety in the sadness

In the taste of a bad coffee

In the grumpiness of an early morning

In the hotness of a summer day

In the rudeness of an arrogant man

I am thinking of the little moments we live

In the most awful memories

That keeps us alive

The touch of a loved one

The slow dance in a closed room

The sunset on a sea view terrace

The hammock nap on a hike

A midnight swim

The city skyline

Driving on empty streets

Loud music in the car

First drop of rain

Harry Potter movies

My mother’s famous rice

My father’s nonchalant jokes

My sisters

A good night sleep

A good book

A funny Netflix series

A walk in a forestry lane

A good song on repeat

The face of a lover

A laugh

A goodbye

A hug

A kiss

The small moments

That do not fade

Even in the darkest day

It blooms, thrives, thirsts off the melancholy

We choose to oversee it

As usually, the pain is too loud

But once we actually notice

Focus on the simplicity

It makes everything bearable

Hell, it becomes addicting

Craving for safety in the abyss

Lusting for the hope found in dirty niches

I live for these

Moments

For the serendipity in a heinous setting

I live to feel

I live for safety

I live to feel the safety

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Song written by Bedroom

It’s 9:36pm, and I am in bed, with a coffee mug the size of a jug. It’s a Wednesday night, it’s May, no AC is on, quite chilly outside, I’m wearing black PJs, and I am listening to In My Head by Bedroom, and it has completely consumed me.

It’s one of those songs that takes me to a different era, a different time. It’s one of those songs that takes me back to when I was 16 years old, sitting on this same bed and thinking of God knows what – never actually believing that I would ever be as old as 24.

The guitar riffs, the depressing lyrics, the untold hope, I feel like I am 16 again, with short black hair and black nails, in a car, someone quietly driving, my head out of the window like a dog, feeling the mightiness of the world, air stroking my chapped lips and cheap red lipstick, blasting this song out loud.

It screams loss of control, and it grounds me. I’ve read the Youtube comments, and though I found many comments heartbreaking, I absolutely love this one:

“I’m lying in my room, alone, listening to this, and I can’t help but feel lonely, so lonely, but the good kind of lonely.” 

This loneliness right now, the one that’s screaming with the song I am listening to, is not a bad kind of lonely. It’s the peaceful one, the one that lets me close my eyes and sit back and do nothing, the one that is letting me write instead of read or watch Seinfeld. I love this kind of lonely, and I absolutely adore this song.

I think I am still stuck at a memory that I have not lived. The 16 years old me in a car, driving through the night. I’ve had car cruises, just never felt the aching freedom, the recklessness, the quietness I lust for.

Maybe once I overcome this memory, the 16 years old me with idyll, maybe then I can live my age, maybe then I can stop craving a memory I do not have. 

But now, I am gleeful, I am hopeful, I am grateful. I have work tomorrow that I feel anxious of, I am waking up early to pay my fines, and I am thinking of a healthy meal for my lunch break tomorrow. I am dealing with grown up shit, responsibilities I will never be old enough to deal with, and my mind is with a 16 years old girl driving through an ebony night. And I am so grateful.

I played this song all day today in my car, at 5:15am as I drove back home from the airport, dropping off my best friend, I blasted it through the empty streets, with closed windows so I do not annoy the oldies and a careful speed in hopes lose my reckless reputation. If that is not grownup, I do not know what is.

Today was fun with lots of social. I went out with friends, then more friends, then my sisters. I drove through my Beirut, and cursed a couple of drivers. And ending today with some strangeness (for me, at least), I stalked Kendall Jenner on Instagram.

I kind of liked a caption she wrote about anxiety and social anxiety, mentioning that one of her grounding routines is writing down “all the things i’m looking forward to today this month.”

That’s an idea I like. I’m having one of those grateful moments where I am looking forward to what is coming. I am looking forward to summer adventures; to hikes, camping by the beach and by the river, laser tag, escape rooms, sightseeing, movie nights, cold dusks and dawns in the middle of the hot summer.

I am looking forward to seeing him soon, and my friends who will be visiting over the months. I am looking forward to good music, to cold coffee, to deep talks, to silly laughs. I am looking forward to moments that make my knees weak and my heart throb faster than usual, to mistakes I know will cost me a lot yet make me feel so alive in the moment. I am looking forward to driving, to not hitting my car, to better luck.

I am looking forward to wearing my new dresses, my new oversized pants, my new lipsticks, my anklets, my sandals. I am looking forward to singing and dancing, knowing that I am bad at both. I am looking forward to the beach and my new tattoo and new sinful experiences. 

I am looking forward to the blessings I so do not deserve, yet I receive, because my God is so generous and loving. I am looking forward to the beauty hidden within the days that are coming.

And I am grateful.

Isn’t it sacredly astounding, to feel all this after listening to one divine song?

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I just drove you to the airport.

I took the wrong road to the airport and we ended up driving a little to the South, and I kept apologizing because even though you leaving is killing me inside, I would never do anything to hurt you. We drove in circles for a while, but eventually I did drive you on time. 

I was trying to speed as much as I can, because this is what I do, I try to stupidly outrun my pain by speeding, but my leg was shaking the whole time. It was shaking so hard, I couldn’t control my brakes, but I managed to hide it from you. You were playing your hilariously weird songs and singing along them and the sun was in your eyes and you were way too beautiful and I was way too enchanted to let you know my leg was shaking so hard and my heart might stop at any moment. 

I am sitting right now on a stairs at the airport, sobbing with the ugliest face ever, hiding behind my face mask, my friends are trying to make me laugh, but every bone in me is crying that this was the last moment I saw you.

I said goodbye to you. I never thought I could ever say goodbye to you. It was short but sweet, an undeserving goodbye, a goodbye I did not expect and did not know how to handle.

How could I say goodbye to you? It is unreal, I refused to believe it. I kept on holding to the slight hope that this is all a lie, that you are not leaving, that this is just an awful nightmare and I will wake up to a world where you are still beside me.

I said goodbye to you, as Cate Le Bon sings in my head: 

He’s leaving

He’s leaving 

Town

And I do feel like dying

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It’s 1:30am. I need to wake up at 5:00am

It’s 1:30am. You texted me at 5:30am today and told me to wake you up at 9:00am if I were awake. 

I woke up at 7:30am, my body aching and the thought of you burned my brain to the core. I made coffee, put on lipstick and, still wearing my pajama, I wore my raincoat and drove to your place.

You woke up the very moment you saw me, which was a first -you’re usually the worst to wake up. I would put on the most annoying song on blast, sing vivaciously, sit on you, shake you and pull your hair out, and you wouldn’t wake up. You eventually do, wake up, look up at the sky and say to God: “what have I ever done to deserve this?”

Today, you woke up right away, and I left you my coffee to drink, and we looked outside the window and we saw a plane flying and you said, in your usual boyish attitude: “look! That’s my plane tomorrow.”

The worst part of all this is that you are happy. You are happy to leave, as you should, but it’s so hard to be happy for you when you’re taking away all I could ever possibly offer. How could I be happy for you when I’m this selfish? You’re asking me to be happy for you when all I really want is to have your arms around me and have the time freeze then and stay stuck in that moment for all eternity. And you expect me to tolerate the idea of you leaving?

A week ago we were also looking at the sky; the sun was setting and the clouds were all pink and fluffy, you looked at the sky and then at me and said: “where will I ever find someone like you?” And I told you with my most serious tone: “don’t even think of searching.“

Here were are, hours away from you leaving. I couldn’t see you tonight, I was with my sisters and you were out drinking with her, behemoth wicked witch of the west. It’s 1:25am, I am seeing you in 5 hours, and I need to sleep, but I know waking up is going to be so painful.

I’m dreading the morning. I’m dreading the 9am that will take you away from me.