The unraveling of suppressed emotions in an unexpected place
Somewhere over Serbia, at 38,000 feet in the air, I allowed myself to cry.
On the flight to France, on my way to cook at events I have been planning since February, I had brought with me a book I saw on Emiko Davies’ Substack; How to Cook a Wolf by M.F.K Fisher. This book was published in 1942 as a lifestyle advice for people going through the scarcities that come as a consequence of reckless wars.
Before even going into the chapters of the book, I was already caught up in my emotions. I was still in the introduction of the revised edition (1952) and it hit me really hard. In the past six years, we went through a devastating economic crash, a global pandemic with a suspicious lockdown, shortages in anything imported (Lebanon imports most of the goods or raw materials for food and non-food industries), literal blackouts on top of the usual power cuts, a destroyed port, bombings, ethnic cleansing, invasion, and occupation. Some of these were labeled as a “war” by the media, but looking at all of this from afar, it has been nothing but a continuous nonstop war.
A traditional Job’s Wednesday turmeric & tahini rice pudding from Beirut
The ongoing attacks on Lebanon, and I say Lebanon because the attacks on Beirut stopped (for now) a few weeks ago, have made me feel demotivated about sharing stuff. The things that I do often; writing, posting, sharing. I haven’t touched my camera since January. This is not a post for pity, but an attempt at narrating reality. Or at least my reality. What I am experiencing. Others might not be feeling the same way. Others might be resuming their daily routines as if nothing happened. Some never had their routines disturbed at all. Mine have been.
I see people doing stuff. I don’t know if it’s true or it’s what I see through my perception, but I feel that everyone is faking it, doing it for the show—and that’s not a judgement, but an observation. I want to resume doing things for fun. I want us to be happy for real, not as a distraction or out of “resilience”.
It drags. And it feels like it will never end. But we know it does. Not that it makes any difference. It is a day followed by another day, with just a different label.
This month comes after Christmas and New Year’s festivities, a time where we put aside the non-urgent worries and eat and drink and exchange gifts and all. The time that comes after definitely pales in comparison. And this is how January feels like; pale, cold, long, boring sometimes, and often dark. And that is not about the global political decisions of a few rich inept individuals which they bestow upon us during the first few days of EACH of the past few years.
My birthday is in the middle of January. I don’t really enjoy having a big celebration for my birthday. I used to invite a few friends (the number fluctuated over the years) for brunch or dinner where I would cook and share a meal. I haven’t done that for many years now, maybe at least 7 years. I have been getting a surprise gathering in the past couple of years.
This year I made a cake. And I made a video and I am writing a post about it. I read somewhere that the magic we used to feel when we were little at celebrations was created by the adults who were around us. And now we are the adults and it is our responsibility to create that magic, even if it is just for us. But how can we create magic when we are surrounded by death and despair everywhere we look?
DELUSION. That is it. It is a privilege to be delusional in this economy and I know I don’t have that luxury.
But I have to take short breaks of delusion and detachment and pretend everything is fine for a minute. That’s the only way to keep going.
Each year I feel less and less excited about celebrating my birthday. I don’t know if it’s because of the world we live in, or the geographical location we live in, or because it’s in the middle of the longest month in the year. Or could it be because I am getting older?
Not that it makes any difference. It is a day followed by another day, with just a different label.
I made a video documenting the day. I show the cake recipe I made which I will share in the post afterwards, and how the day went overall.
This is the year where people either found a great success as the silver lining of things, or utter failure and disappointment.
In Lebanon, our government took it on itself to give us the latter, no matter how hard we tried to pull ourselves together. Despite our revolution attempt and all the other attempts that followed, we couldn’t cope with the economic crisis and the unrecognized collapsing of the local currency which preceded a worsening state and verified one governmental failure after the other. The cherry on top was the Beirut blast that took place on August 4 at around 6:07 pm.
Food is political In my country food changed from being a commodity into a tool used by the ever-ruling parties in order to tame all the citizens, especially those who dissed the aforementioned parties during the October 17 revolution which felt like a breath of fresh air.
Food is political.
And politics is now dictating what we eat and how we cook.
With the soaring prices of everything due to the inflation and the collapse of the local currency against the dollar, people resorted to looking for alternatives. Imported goods have tripled if not quadrupled in price, which affected most of the local industries as they heavily rely on imported raw materials, which caused their price to also spike, since their only way of getting dollars is at the higher black market rate that is almost reaching 6 to 7 times more than the official rate. With the –expected– lack of support from the government, it is the least described as hell. Continue reading “The Spill: Food is Political”→
