How to Shoot a Gun
I’m travelling north to another city to meet a guy in an ancient souk.
Reluctantly.
Not about the ancient souk part. You all know (or will soon learn) that I love that stuff. Reluctantly because going on dates is exhausting. Especially first dates. I’ve had a few in the last few months, and all they’ve yielded is better boundaries and deep regret.
A normal person in my situation might use my favourite Arabic word, “khallas” (enough), and call it a day. But I am not normal. Also, these are not normal times. I suspect there’s something primordial about the feeling of waking up solo in bed when the ground shakes or the skies boom. About coming home from chopping onions for hours, or making 2000 sandwiches, or spending time with people who have been sent out from their homes and then have had watch as they are destroyed.
About wanting to share it all with someone who gets it.
Again, I acknowledge my privilege. I have not been sent out of my home, or lost any of family. I am one of the lucky ones.
But also, and this is really hard to admit: I’m tired of taking care of myself all the time.
My date has not come to pick me up because his car has broken down. Or so he says. He offered to take public transport to meet me near my dad’s, where I stayed last night, but I really want to see that ancient souk.
So my dad is driving me. Like I was 17, and he used to drop me off, ominously say “be careful”, then come pick me up three hours later and pretend I didn’t reek of Eternity by Calvin Klein.
“Why isn’t he coming to get you?” Dad asks, for the second time, as I’m putting on my shoes.
“He’s having car trouble,” I say, desperately hoping this is true.
“Where are you meeting?”
I show him the location.
“That’s right next to the highway.”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t I just drop you off in the old town?”
“Because this is where he suggested, Dad, and he said it’s a 5-minute walk into the old town, and can you just please trust the situation?”
“Give me his number.”
“What? Why?”
“For safety.”
“If he kills me, his phone number isn’t going to help very much.”
“Yes,” Dad says. “It will.”
My dad’s and my roles in each other’s lives are starting to bend.
He’s been having back pain. I started walking his very large labrador, Luna, and doing more cooking and cleaning when I come over. Then I managed, successfully, to get him to get some help for when I’m not there.
He still stays keenly on top of my whereabouts (part of the deal we made when the war started—he has my location on his phone), and makes it known when I’m stepping into “making Dad worry” territory. Once, when I was south of Beirut, he called me in a panic because my phone showed that I was at the Amman Airport. (Yes, our neighbours even f***k with our GPS.)
“I’m not,” I said, triumphant that at least he’d be less pissed off.
“Why are you in the middle of nowhere? Who with? You know this isn’t a real ceasefire, don’t you?”
Since his back has gotten worse, he’s started letting me drive his car. Sin driving here more of a competitive sport than a way to get around, this is no small thing. Lanes are a suggestion in Lebanon. People honk at you if you stop for red lights. One-way streets are really just streets with one-way signs on them.
When I first started, he’d sit next to me, helpfully repeating the exact same thing the Google Maps lady just said, or, “Stay to the left because you have to exit in 1km.”
Just like he did when I learned to drive the first time around.
I’m in the basement of our volunteer-run kitchen. It’s a sunny day, and a friend and I are laughing as we fold donated clothes and sort them in boxes. The non-ceasefire is continuing. The streets of central Beirut feel as normal as they get. It’s like a pause, a deep breath before more unknown.
I check my phone and see a text from my dad: “Call me.”
I race upstairs to the terrace to get reception.
“I don’t know what happened,” he says, “but my back is really bad. I can’t walk on my right leg.”
The thing I always think when I’m hit with a logistical challenge in life, especially in Lebanon, is: “I need to ask my dad what to do.”
I actually open my mouth to say this.
I close it.
My brain goes over the impossibility loop again.
Everything around me is very bright.
I say, quietly, “What should I do?”
We decide that I should come to his place right away, and that if he’s not better the next day, he’ll go to the hospital. In slow motion, I return downstairs, tell everyone what’s happened, and cry on my friend’s shoulder for 30 seconds.
Another volunteer drives me home to get my clothes and Django and then for more than an hour through rush hour traffic.
In Lebanon, as a woman, you are identified as the closest man in your life. On many of my documents here, my name is my first name, then my dad’s first name, then my last name.
And now, I am helping him put on his socks. Taking him to medical appointments. Getting groceries while he sits in the car, instructing me on how to choose good pomegranates.
Hearing him say, for the first time in my life, what a good driver I am.
On the date with Ancient Souk Guy, we sat for two hours talking in an amphitheatre, surrounded by crumbling ruins. We stood between Roman columns and discussed philosophy. He was handsome and political and vehemently pro-animal rights. He asked when he could see me again before we said goodbye.
I caught myself wondering if this was really happening.
On our second date, he fat-shamed one of my friends, shared that he did not believe that the patriarchy exists, and added that he does not really see the point of boundaries, or, for that matter, consent.
I have spent the last decades running decisions about banking, cars, and insurance policies past the man who raised me. Who is far from being a feminist, but who told me repeatedly, as soon as I could understand it, that I could do anything a boy could do.
Who encouraged me to travel. Who taught me how to drive stick.
And also, how to shoot a gun.
Khallas.
A month has passed since that date.
I’m driving myself to the same city, although not to the ancient part. I’m headed to the less beautiful new area, which has a hospital where I need to go to make a deposit on a scan for my dad. He can’t even walk now, let alone drive.
He is as happy about the situation as you can imagine.
I spent a lifetime refusing to believe that I would ever be in this role. And had you told me how heavy it would feel to see my father suffer, I would have assured you this was a weight I could not bear.
It’s been almost impossible to focus, let alone write this post.
We’re still waiting for more tests to get a proper prognosis, but whatever they are, it’s not going to be an easy road. I think we’re both wavering between denial, hope, and bone-deep fear.
The fake cease fire continues.
So do daily bombings and invasions of people’s homes. Journalists are still being assassinated. Hundreds of thousands of families have no home to return to. And western media is barely saying a word.
Truth Be Told, the organization where I’ve been volunteering and which many of you have generously supported over the last two months, is looking for a new home, possibly one where we can open our doors to the community and build something more lasting, more interactive, and more sustainable. Your donations are continuing to support what I can say with certainty is one of the most hardworking NGOs ever to exist—and one of the few spaces that’s keeping this particular human afloat.
I shared my latest news with a friend on the phone the other day.
She said something that stuck with me: “The love with which we run to help… that’s where the hope lies.”
Love this. I do have a follow-up question: did you find out what his car situation was in the end? :D
This is a dandy! Many thanks -- don't know how you find the oomph to write coherently and evocatively in the midst of so much chaos and fear. xoxo