Ta(l)king Back (to) the City—Fragments of Beirut and/in Me

ABSTRACT In Beirut, I struggle to write the city. I grew up amidst a raging civil war (1975-1990) and accompanied the city from one bout of violence to another. Having spent parts of my childhood either hiding from bombs or moving houses, I grew up claustrophobic, terrified of new spaces. My relationship with the city has always been one of constant negotiation and contestation: of my place and my body, of the allowed and the denied, of survival. I discovered that walking and writing Beirut are inseparable endeavours and practices: political and personal, embodied and poetic. But how would one write a city constantly displacing herself? Constantly violating her own terms? and how do you convince your body that being claustrophobic in open space defies the very definition of the term? In this piece, I write to understand, to reconcile with my body/city, to feel less confined. I write to try to find a holding centre in ruins.