December 25th
Tucked up in blankets and hid under the grand borrowed headphones I'm spending the evening with good music, Latvian herb tea and an inappropriately big piece of French/Belgian/Lebanese traditional bûche de Noël (that chocolaty piece of pleasure). The latter comes from yesterday's festive dinner with artsy French tunes and attendees, the no-Christmas-but-we're-foreigners-in-Beirut evening. Right space and time to be thankful to Charlotte, my Belgian flatmate for the initiative and her socially active lifestyle.
There will always be something and someone missing, always. That's quite alright. Getting home at 7am on Christmas morning after a bar tour in Beirut is an experience, too. Now, I've well grown out of the concept of experience-for-it's-own-sake, but I'm still an aware advocate for finding learning and growing, also in all sorts of dusty and random places. And for the record, it's well ok that sometimes we just don't bother to look for any of it.
If I could give this period of time a theme or a headline it would be a verb, and it would be "to claim". Whether it's everyday chores stuff, professional capacities, personal need for attention or the music I'm putting out there.. there is something soothing and challenging, and tempting to the process of acknowledging that "it is all mine. and, therefore, it is yours, too."
I have been altogether crap at giving -I'm alive- signs since in Beirut, but maybe the reason behind it is to some point valid. Being just alive doesn't really qualify to me. It's like filling a blank spot with awkwardness not to face the discomfort of emptiness. Truth is, I am very alive and I have more and more to say, but not just yet. Or not in this format at least. There are things I miss, things I struggle with here, but I always find things to struggle with, no matter the location. So do trust me when I say Beirut is treating me well. Do know that there is always something and someone missing. And that it is quite alright that way.
There is always more to life.
Go live.
Tucked up in blankets and hid under the grand borrowed headphones I'm spending the evening with good music, Latvian herb tea and an inappropriately big piece of French/Belgian/Lebanese traditional bûche de Noël (that chocolaty piece of pleasure). The latter comes from yesterday's festive dinner with artsy French tunes and attendees, the no-Christmas-but-we're-foreigners-in-Beirut evening. Right space and time to be thankful to Charlotte, my Belgian flatmate for the initiative and her socially active lifestyle.
There will always be something and someone missing, always. That's quite alright. Getting home at 7am on Christmas morning after a bar tour in Beirut is an experience, too. Now, I've well grown out of the concept of experience-for-it's-own-sake, but I'm still an aware advocate for finding learning and growing, also in all sorts of dusty and random places. And for the record, it's well ok that sometimes we just don't bother to look for any of it.
If I could give this period of time a theme or a headline it would be a verb, and it would be "to claim". Whether it's everyday chores stuff, professional capacities, personal need for attention or the music I'm putting out there.. there is something soothing and challenging, and tempting to the process of acknowledging that "it is all mine. and, therefore, it is yours, too."
I have been altogether crap at giving -I'm alive- signs since in Beirut, but maybe the reason behind it is to some point valid. Being just alive doesn't really qualify to me. It's like filling a blank spot with awkwardness not to face the discomfort of emptiness. Truth is, I am very alive and I have more and more to say, but not just yet. Or not in this format at least. There are things I miss, things I struggle with here, but I always find things to struggle with, no matter the location. So do trust me when I say Beirut is treating me well. Do know that there is always something and someone missing. And that it is quite alright that way.
There is always more to life.
Go live.
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