The world has gone insane and all I can do is dig in my family's history

The world has gone insane. These last few days have been mad - and that's no understatement. Still, in preparation for the cleaning coming up on Saturday, I have been trying to see the odds and ends on top of the closets or put here and there by a successive number of househelps each with her own way of cleaning and stacking things. So on the good news front, I found some long lost photographs I have been trying to find for a long time - I personally put them in one of the closets, but - Zeina, Amani, Sarah or whomever else from the househelps - decided that they should go elsewhere. Also, the school bag which - I suspect has been bringing mites - was full of wonders. Old electricity bills (check), old water bills (check), but also - I found in them very important legal papers, in addition to my parents' marriage registration, my late father's baccalaureate, a registry of the gifts they (my parents) got for their union, in addition to many items and documents worth keeping in better places.

The more everything goes unhinged, the more I find myself retracting into more secure places, places that are at this point immutable and unchangeable. Because when everything else is going bananas, it is nice to know how much the chandeliers my parents bought when they got wed actually cost. Even if, for the moment, they have been dismantled and have been kept for safekeeping in the upper floor of my house.

Dear Prince Harry, families are complicated, get over it

Jacket for Prince Harry's "Spare" memoir - credit: Penguin Random House

The scene happens inside one of Beirut's wealthiest families.

The eldest brother is furious that his sister in law (the wife of his youngest brother) is pregnant. How come? Without a heir to his brother the families' meatiest property (literally, a Beiruti landmark) would revert back to him. With a child, his brother can keep it. Now the "eldest brother" in question is married to a foreign woman of excessive wealth (I cannot reveal her family name, obviously) so basically he has no need for the property in question. 

Do I need to elaborate? 

I come from a very very large extended family - from both sides. As times goes by people you were close to would no longer be close, cousins you were very tight with you only speak to biannually. Just to be clear, this does not mean bad blood, it's called "life". I mean, imagine the scene: My cousin passes literally in front of me at a funeral, and does not even say hello. well, considering the last time he saw me was practically 35 years prior, it only makes sense. 

Actually, at this point, there is "something" happening in my nuclear family which I still did not tell my eldest brother about. My middle brother knows. There is no point sharing it with my eldest brother (both my brother and myself agreed on that) at this level, so I am postponing this.

If I am writing all this it's because Prince Harry just gave gruesome details about his fight with his brother, the current Prince of Wales, or Prince William for us commoners. Here's the issue, I think it was idiotic for him to share it.

How come? Listen, yes, my brothers and I have had our differences. Major differences. And this is where I will stop my sentence. The rest is private. If we had any "fights" it's no one's business. What we agree on or what we do not remains our internal business. There is no interest for anyone to know what happens behind our closed doors.

I am not playing saint and saying I do not share snippets with a close friend (I have the grand total or 2-3 close friends so it's not like I am writing a book about it and calling it "Spare" har, har) when things get extremely difficult. But still, even such sharing is kept to a minimum. 

I still have this idea, that no matter how much it ebbs and flows, I still consider a brother, a brother. In Arabic, so many people use the sentence "mitl khayye" (exactly like my brother), also these days the notion of "chosen family" is also very rampant (particularly in the west). 

I tend to disagree with both notions. 

Friends, no matter, how close, might tend to go away, or were not with you since birth and have shared things only family members remember or are aware of. With family you are bound to them - whether you want it or not. 

Of course, this notion might be childish, but believe it or not I tend to stand by it. 

So yes, explaining to the whole wide world about a fight that happened with your brother - is not really how things are done in my dictionary.

Long story short, Prince Harry needs to understand that families are complicated.

And eventually he needs to get over it.

A Christmas that changed me (after The Guardian)

The Guardian newspaper is running a superb series about "A Christmas that changed me" as written by people who had epiphanies at Christmas. Well, though the newspaper never invited me to write one (cough, ahem) I do have one such recollection.

It was 1983, so I was 9, and I remember distinctly it was a weekday so it must have been December 23rd. Believing in Santa was never a huge thing at our house. So basically we knew it was parents who got the gifts. I had seen a GI Joe at my (older) cousin. And really, really, wanted one. The one store who would sell them was Toyland barely a few minutes from our house (but of course, as children, our notion of distance was blurred so going anywhere especially on foot, was - rather far).

Naturally, as a kid I did not know that my father came early on a Friday (government employees tend to end their work at 11 A.M. on Fridays because their Moslem counterparts are supposed to have time to go pray at Mosques). And so indeed my father came early, and I was already on my Christmas break from school. And my mother announced that I was to go with father pick a gift.

Naturally, I wanted the Toyland GI Joe. And so we went. It was at 50 Liras. I am not sure how expensive it was at the time (as compared to my father's salary). But it seems it was so because he dissuaded me from getting it. Surely as a child, it was a bit of a blow. But we did go to another store - called Snoopy - which was right next to the Gitawi public park (don't be fooled by the name just a few benches and a slide) and we got a BMW (battery operated) at 25 Liras. Half the GI Joe price and my father thought it was a convenient one to pay.

I kept that toy till I moved from Beirut in 2010. You might ask how this Christmas changed me? Well, to begin with knowing I could not get what I wanted was a first lesson. Knowing my father thought the BMW was better priced was another (that I would excel later at economics could have stemmed from there). Weirdly, even as a child, I recognized spending time with my father was special. Because these were rare occurrences. 

My father expressed his affection in a rather traditional way. Not in a physical affection kind of behavior. More like - "All right, I am the father, I provide to the household, you are getting a good education, you have a roof above your head, and things to eat, this is the love I can give". And if I remember the BMW car (whose box you will see on this post), and if I remember the GI Joe toy, even at that age I was aware that I got to spend time with my father, alone and without my brothers - was something so uncommon.

I am not making some grand statement here, or some revealing some deep psychological fact, but as you grow old, your relationship to your parents changes, and it is you who becomes the person in charge. And I always remember the last thing my father said to me when I asked him - on morning of the day he passed away - "do you want me to go teach at university today?" (he was obviously unwell since the day before) and he replied: "rou7, Allah yorda 3aleik" (Go, may God be pleased with you) a local expression to bestow gratitude on someone.

Interestingly, I never got a GI Joe. Nor was I interested in getting one later. But that Christmas did change me.

2020, the year of small joys

Was this year horrible? By all  measures it was.

And yet, we survived it. Only a few days and it would end. Of course, when one remembers it, maybe the most striking day would be that of the August 4th explosion, if you happen to be a Lebanese (I almost died twice that day). I previously have cautioned how to survive 2020 - the trick is simple - suspend all comparisons (here). But if I choose to remember a day of this wretched year, it would be September 11, the day of the Ethiopian new year.

You see, A., our househelp was invited to a sleepover. Her mother in Ethiopia firmly banned her from going because of all the Coronavirus cases popping up. To say the young girl was disappointed was an understatement. So I suggested she would host a party at our house. At first she thought I was joking, but I doubled down with "so, who do you want to invite?". Whereas she did not answer, I knew she was plotting it in her head.

And so indeed, on September 11, day of the new year, she went about cleaning the house and cooking and what not. Then early in the afternoon, I smelled something being baked. I went to the kitchen to check what the smell was, and A. put her finger on her mouth to indicate secrecy. It turned out to be a cake. 

So indeed, nuts were fried the Ethiopian way, leftover Lebanese roasted nuts and potato chips were assembled in small dishes, pop corn was popped, cola bottles manifested themselves (including a Mirinda which is the choice drink for celebration in Ethiopia), a small low table was decorated with flowers and an incense diffuser (with coffee cups for after the food and drink), and A. changed into a nice dress and high heels which she had ordered from an internet shop and which had arrived the day before. All this happened without my mother noticing as she was sitting in her Morris chair in the salon.

Two girls who worked in neighboring houses came by, and A. invited mother to preside on the celebrations. To be honest even I did the effort of actually wearing something that was not my usual house shorts. And there we were, eating cake and having cola drinks, mother was bestowing well wishes on the girls and they would repeat with "Amen" after each one in unison (health, wealth, prosperity, peace of mind and so on....). I made sure to take photos of everyone and send them to A. on whatsapp who immediately sent them to both the girls there but also to her parents in Ethiopia.

About three or four hours later, A. changed into jeans and trainers and went with the girls to the house where one of them worked for dinner. At about 8 in the evening she came back all smiling and giggling. I asked her if she had fun during the day. And she answered with a resounding "eehhh" (Lebanese for yes), and if she thought this was better than the sleepover - again she agreed.

Actually, we are a very low-key house in term of celebrations. Rarely do I invite people over (by choice mind you), and we do not hold extended family celebrations. Even Sunday lunches are a 15 minute thing. In case you did not know, Sunday lunches are Marathonic affairs in certain families that join lunch to dinner and go well into the night. So hosting a party was totally out of character.

But hey, 2020 was indeed a year of small joys. And the day of the Ethiopian new year was one of them.