“Darkness is oppressive. Silence echoes what I do not want to hear. Night is a curse that keeps on coming back. Night is the green screen onto which everything is projected, what I do not want to see nor feel, my anxieties, my fears and pains. The sunrise ushers the relief of light, the glow of which makes the burden of things feel slightly lighter.
The hustle and bustle of survival gets in the way of despondence, yet the feeling lurks around almost every corner. The day feels endless because the struggle for survival offers no respite. And before you know it, darkness comes and it starts all over again. More often than not, this is how it feels these days.”
It’s been almost impossible to write about Beirut lately, at a time when there is so much to say. Or rather, so much to want to let out, as we witness Lebanon’s slow and painful collapse, taking everyone down with it.
While trying to come to terms with how difficult it has been to put it all into words, I gathered a couple of thoughts in a piece I just wrote for Women Writer’s, Women’s Books, “Selective Writer’s Block: When Some Things Are Better Left Unwritten.” This isn’t only about writing about Beirut, but about the difficulty of writing about issues that become too personal and too close to home, even for writers yourselves. I decided to call it ‘selective writer’s block.’
Selective writer’s block eventually unblocks and untangles itself. It just needs some time. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping.
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Drive on…
Eye on the East 