The hardest part about reality is that multiple things can be true at the same time and for someone with a splitting black and white cognitive modus operandi, the world becomes nearly impossible to navigate. Food for thought for myself in the coming weeks and months.
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Day two. I haven’t slept more than three hours a night since Friday. It’s not until you are sleep-deprived, overthinking, and unable to contain a single thought that you realise how precious sleep is. How do I describe the situation? Occasionally, blasts can be heard, streaks of falling light across the sky, and an insane amount of drivel and misinformation online that is sometimes more triggering than everything else combined. The panic and fear mostly come from the Western world, which is so intent on misunderstanding the GCC region, even though these countries have accomplished what most of the world still only dreams of. Despite the terrifying events this weekend, the UAE still remains the safest country I’ve ever lived in. There was no public drama, no panic, no state of emergency. Was I unsettled and afraid? Of course. No one can imagine what it’s like (unless they’ve experienced it): drone debris falling from the sky at any given moment, anywhere, and the world has seen far, far, far worse. Being forced to stay indoors, with airports shut down, not knowing when you’ll be able to go home, is soul-crushing, especially when you are alone in a country that’s not really yours. That being said, this place is and always will be a home to me, and after this weekend, even more so. Nothing but gratitude.
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So much for a better world but maybe this is how we’ll get there. Nothing else left except hope for better days. It started yesterday and this morning, we woke up to closed airports, drone debris falling down from the sky, some buildings on fire, and a general feeling of unsettlement across the city. It’s not the first time and we’ve been here before but somehow this time it feels more serious. And there’s not much left to do. I am staying at home, keeping in touch with friends and family, cooking a meal, doing my laundry, washing my dishes, and pretending as if the world outside has not gone absolutely insane. Except it has always been like this. None of this is anything new, that is the worst part. How many times have we said never again?
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Oh, this was a good month. Slow, and long, but good. Stretched out in bliss across countries, continents, and contrasting temperatures; in weather and of the heart. Started off the year in Istria with our dear lifelong friends, mulled gin, the most glorious sunset on the last day of the old year. A midnight concert in the tiny city centre with ćevapi the next day to ring in the first. Pula and Rovinj were, of course, the crowns of our visit but in the end it was all about our time together, laughs, and book recommendations shared. I discovered Terranino Spritz and The Correspondent by Virginia Evans; as unrelated as they might seem, they are both my wholehearted recommendations to everyone.
Books are again a constant in my life in a way that I have missed so much in the last few years. But I’m reading, dear friend, which is to say, I’m feeling alive after a long while. We spent a lot of time on the road, driving hundreds of kilometres between the Gulf of Trieste, Istria, and the Dalmatian Coast. One way or another, the sea is a constant in my life; always in the background, always there. Again, I left home with a heavy heart.
Vienna waited for me, after long years of my absence, with the usual: Albertina, Mozartkugel, Wiener Schnitzel, Melange und Apfelstrudel. The thing is though, I don’t feel like a tourist despite the fact that I intentionally behave like one every time I visit. I walked down Wollzeile and felt a familiarity that transcended my lifetime.
There were signs everywhere. A small penguin in a window shop, ex-Yugo surnames in bookstores, a vending machine with coffee, a chess set, Persian rugs, and fishing paraphernalia. The single frozen but blue and sunny Sunday, suddenly breaking up a streak of long, dreary, grey weeks. Of course, the sun was not for me but it was nice to pretend. I was on my own but still had company (the feeling of a warm sun on my skin; in the form of messages). That, too, felt like a sign. It was all in there. Austrian Airlines did not disappoint despite the delayed flight — which was also meant to be.
Seven hours back to the desert, some wine, and hundreds of written words later:“And if you’re not visiting, welcome back home.”
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Ramadan. Lunar New Year. Mardi Gras. All at once, on the same day. This year the celebrations feel particularly special and meaningful. I can feel the collective strength building up in the air but also the release of everything old; the gratitude, the peace, and the humbling realisation of the sheer amount of people that are celebrating on this day. Between these collective and incredibly powerful celebrations, the world feels particularly blessed and hopeful right now. I grew up with a Muslim grandmother even though she was secular more than anything else. It wasn’t until much later that I started to understand her quiet Islamic influence on my upbringing. I’m also feeling grateful all over again to have grown up in Hong Kong, celebrating the Lunar New Year for ten years. With billions of people coming together today in joy and peace over the next few weeks, I feel like I do belong somewhere after all. Here is to a better world.
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The last time I attempted to nurture this space of mine was years ago. Back then, I lived three-thousand miles away in a city founded in the seventh century with cobblestone pavements, with unlimited public transport that cost 50 Eurocents a day, with underground pubs where a glass of wine was less than €2, and with shops where one could buy books by the kilo for dirt cheap. The city was Prague and the year was 2019.
Metaphorically and physically, I’ve come a long way since then. In the middle of the global pandemic, I traded the beautiful but landlocked forests of Central Europe for miles and miles of desert, sandy beaches, year-round sunshine, and an infinite supply of falafel. Ahoj! was replaced with Yalla! and Staroměstské náměstí with the view of Burj Khalifa. I landed in Dubai exactly five years ago on this date, and in perhaps the biggest plot twist of my life, Dubai became my base. What’s more, it became my home. Another one.
I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about home; as a sentimental concept, a geographical entity, and a third undefined thing, with a meaning that’s only clear to me. Thinking about home is what the old space used to be about and the legacy that remains. Moving across countries and continents, rediscovering my passions both as a reader and a writer have slowly led me back here. Slowly and with uncertainty because the internet has changed. Hell, the world has changed. Still, this tiny corner of the World Wide Web has been in existence in one form or another since 2007; it is something that I have invested an immeasurable number of hours into and that has always been mine in a way that nothing else ever belonged to me. The truth is, a part of me never really left, even though my words got lost somewhere along the way.
I often think of a quote I had pasted in my journal as a teenager: “If I could find my way to the first word I’d ever written, I could maybe find my way home.”
So here I am.