Ever thought about the fact that all the most amazing writers have a history of mental illnesses, high suicide rate, high substance abuse and alcoholism? It isn't that odd, I guess, when you think about how much time you spend alone as a writer. Not just alone, alone with your thoughts. That you write down. And that sometimes you can't find the words for. And it drives you crazy.
Writers are lucky, when they can actually write. I love the fact that I can put my feelings into words. It helps me understand them, helps me understand myself. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't write.
But writing is one lonely job. Here I am: I flew, 6,000 miles away, to a city of 8 million people, just to go write, alone, in a cafe on the Lower East Side. Yet, magically, being alone here is not the same as being alone in Beirut. In Lebanon I'm never alone. I'm never alone in my room because at any time my dad, my sister, the housekeeper or the cat could drop in. The doorbell rings, I know it's not for me, but I have to answer it anyway. The land-line rings, and I also know it's not for me since I haven't used the house phone since 2002, but I have to answer it. If I'm sitting alone in a cafe, I'm gonna get interrupted at least 3 times by someone I recognise who is also here. Some will say that's the best part about Beirut (like my dad, he loves the constant social interruptions) but for me, it's not an environment I can work in.
So I brought myself to New York City, and I'm trapped at home because it's minus a million degrees outside and my nose almost broke off when I went to Yoga this morning. Yes, I went to Yoga after two months of putting off doing any sort of physical activity. Anyway, what was I saying? Ah, yes writing.
I'm writing today, I have nothing else to do and I've decided to stop procrastinating. Don't postpone what you can do today for tomorrow --or something like that. My mom would always say that to me. Good advice too, except I don't often take it. But this time I am. Odd thought I had this morning (this is off topic but I'll still mention it) I stopped and looked at my mom's picture on my phone's background and I suddenly wished for something I haven't found myself wishing for in a long time: I wished that she could come see me here, now that I moved to New York. That she would come to visit her daughter and that for a week, just seven days, I could have her all to myself, and show her my Manhattan. It's funny, but the very first time I found myself wishing to visit America was when my mother told me bedtime stories about her youth: when she was 17, she went on a trip to America, sleeping in different people's homes --that's how I remember it anyway, her great adventure.
She was a fun person, my mom. Loved to pull pranks on her friends. Read comic books. Was a ski champion. Loved Peanuts comics, and I think that says it all. I miss her at odd moments, still. Like now, for some reason, sitting in this New York apartment.
Anyway, got completely off subject here. See how the mind of a writer works? Goes off on all kinds of tangents.
Yeah, the life of a writer might be lonely. But the mind of a writer --that, I can tell you, is full of stories.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Monday, January 27, 2014
as of now
It's a strange feeling, being in a city that you've just moved to. That you want to make a home in, a life. It's all very exciting for me, the endless possibilities. Frightening also. I just moved to New York from Beirut, yesterday.
Let me give you some context: I'm a Lebanese girl in her late-twenties, I've lived in Beirut for most of my life except those two years when I went to Columbia University Journalism School. That's where I met my best-friend, who is letting me crash in his great Lower East Side apartment, for now. I'd been working as a journalist in Lebanon for more than five years now, and after a recent breakup and being fed-up with the social and political situation in my country, I decided to do what a lot of people have done before me: immigrate.
Hello America.
Not to talk politics here, but I have, for now at least, lost hope for my country in the foreseeable future. And maybe it's selfish of me, or unpatriotic to give up. I made this choice. Not a lot of money in my bank account, but enough to survive a while. No concrete leads on a job, but some on possible freelance work. And of course, there's this book I want to write. This novel that's been spinning in my mind for years and is ready to be written down now, I think.
You might not believe this, but in just one day, from being in Beirut to arriving in New York, my mood changed 180 degrees. I walked down Houston street at 7:30 this morning, breathing in the patches of snow left on the sidewalk, a huge smile on my face. I walked, where so many have walked before me for their dreams. New York is a city for people who want to change their lives, and I could never shake off this desire, that I want bigger things in my life.
The author of my favorite book, Frank McCourt, who wrote Angela's Ashes, came to America from Ireland when he was in his early twenties. To me, his life story, which he recounts in his book, is one of the most inspiring life experience I've read about.
In 1949, my grandmother moved to New York from Damascus, after marrying my grandfather who worked in trading textiles from China and India to the United States. My grandmother was 22 years-old at the time, and had barely ever left her neighbourhood in Damascus. Suddenly she found herself living in the Waldorf Astoria, learning English, and taking lessons in how to be a good host, and how to walk properly with high-heel shoes on.
Some 65 years later, here I am, listening to music while walking down the streets of Manhattan, making me want to dance and sing out loud and skip and twirl. For some reason, when I'm in Beirut, I never listen to music while walking. Then again I don't walk much there at all.
This is why I'm happy to be here. I can block out my own thoughts when they get to be too much. I can press pause and play music and dance on the South-East corner of the street waiting for my friend to appear. And just then, I let one thought through: I've just begun the rest of my life.
Let me give you some context: I'm a Lebanese girl in her late-twenties, I've lived in Beirut for most of my life except those two years when I went to Columbia University Journalism School. That's where I met my best-friend, who is letting me crash in his great Lower East Side apartment, for now. I'd been working as a journalist in Lebanon for more than five years now, and after a recent breakup and being fed-up with the social and political situation in my country, I decided to do what a lot of people have done before me: immigrate.
Hello America.
Not to talk politics here, but I have, for now at least, lost hope for my country in the foreseeable future. And maybe it's selfish of me, or unpatriotic to give up. I made this choice. Not a lot of money in my bank account, but enough to survive a while. No concrete leads on a job, but some on possible freelance work. And of course, there's this book I want to write. This novel that's been spinning in my mind for years and is ready to be written down now, I think.
You might not believe this, but in just one day, from being in Beirut to arriving in New York, my mood changed 180 degrees. I walked down Houston street at 7:30 this morning, breathing in the patches of snow left on the sidewalk, a huge smile on my face. I walked, where so many have walked before me for their dreams. New York is a city for people who want to change their lives, and I could never shake off this desire, that I want bigger things in my life.
The author of my favorite book, Frank McCourt, who wrote Angela's Ashes, came to America from Ireland when he was in his early twenties. To me, his life story, which he recounts in his book, is one of the most inspiring life experience I've read about.
In 1949, my grandmother moved to New York from Damascus, after marrying my grandfather who worked in trading textiles from China and India to the United States. My grandmother was 22 years-old at the time, and had barely ever left her neighbourhood in Damascus. Suddenly she found herself living in the Waldorf Astoria, learning English, and taking lessons in how to be a good host, and how to walk properly with high-heel shoes on.
Some 65 years later, here I am, listening to music while walking down the streets of Manhattan, making me want to dance and sing out loud and skip and twirl. For some reason, when I'm in Beirut, I never listen to music while walking. Then again I don't walk much there at all.
This is why I'm happy to be here. I can block out my own thoughts when they get to be too much. I can press pause and play music and dance on the South-East corner of the street waiting for my friend to appear. And just then, I let one thought through: I've just begun the rest of my life.
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