“Car comme il en a toujours été, c’est seulement à l’heure de la séparation que l’amour connait sa propre profondeur”, Khalil Gibran.

One more day, you wake up with the sound of the adhan bursting into your room, straight to your ears, making you open those tired eyes and looking towards the window. You already got used to the voice of this muezzin, he has a very nice tone, quite soothing. This pleasant sound actually makes you think of your childhood, when you used to wake up with the sound of the church bells on a Sunday morning, procrastinating, postponing that moment of getting ready to go to the mass with the rest of your family.

But now it’s different. You don’t need to rush anywhere, you have no obligation. It’s an extremely warm morning of early August and you’re just there, alone. Not many people know where your body is lying at this moment, you fled away and landed in this city, in this house, in this room, in this bed. You had no idea what to expect from this land, from its people, from the secrets that every street seems to keep, silent, like an ancient tree in the middle of a deserted land.

You needed a break. A break from everything that surrounded you, everything you owned that gave you nothing but a daily headache. A break from the noise, from the mess, from the stress, from your own life. A break from yourself. You took the essentials and landed in this corner of the world, willing to learn but also to forget, ready to be a whole better version of yourself.

You’re immerse in your own thoughts when you realize the adhan is over, and the bustling noise of the city waking up starts filling up the neighborhood. The smell of the freshly ovened pitas and manakeesh is now mixed with the one of the Arabic coffee that might flood every table by now. This is probably the best incentive to abandon the wrinkled bed sheets stick to your skin and get going with your day. Shower makes you feel instantly better, continuing the awakening ritual you have to go through every morning of your life since you remember, only concluded after the first coffee of the day, but this one will have to wait this time. After getting dressed, you grab your wallet, camera and “rock of Tanios” before heading out of the apartment.

Now you’re again in the outside world, foreign streets, foreign looks, foreign languages and still you feel home somehow. You walk down the street where your apartment is located until reaching the rainbow coloured stairs of Mar Mikhael, breathing the heavy summer air of the city yet still walking incredibly light. You stop by one of the convenience stores in the corner to get a package of cigarettes, which you forgot back home. Now you’re already calling “home” the apartment you barely knew one month ago. You are calling “home” a place where you were never before, where you won’t be ever again, a place that has no relationship with you. You take one cigarette out when a passerby offers you a lighter. At first you didn’t understand, then she repeated the question in French. You smile and accept, realising you also forgot your lighter home.

“Are you visiting?” she asks you hesitantly.

By the look in her eyes, she probably thought you were a local. It’s not that easy to differentiate locals from visitors in a city crowded with so much diversity.

“Kind of. I have been here for a while though”, you reply, not sure about the amount of information you should be giving to someone you just met in the street. She looks friendly, probably a couple of years younger than you, and her face looks very familiar. It’s like you met somewhere before. Like you met in a previous life.

“Nice”, she adds. “Then you probably know the neighborhood better than me. I just moved here from Canada”.

Now it’s you the hesitant one. You were sure she was one of those hip girls living around the area, those working in one of the art galleries, maybe even an artist. A million thoughts cross your mind as you realise how bad you both were at making suppositions about each other. You offer her a cigarette and sit together on the stairs, none of you looking in a rush. As the conversation goes on, you both realise you have more in common than you ever had with many of the people you left behind, back “home”. She points out at the book you’re holding in your hand, explaining Amin Maalouf is one of her favorite writers. Then you talk about Maalouf, about Gibran, about Khoury, about writers and singers, before switching to the next topic.

At some point you exchange numbers and she invites you to join her for a soirée that same evening.

“I will think about it, really”, you say.

You are supposed to head to the North of the country first thing tomorrow morning and you realise you don’t want to leave. You grew fonder of this city, fonder of its food, its people, its rhythm, fonder of Beirut. You probably didn’t realise while spending your time in the cafeterias, listening to Fayrouz, meeting locals and foreigners, loving hummus and smoking shisha, walking around, getting lost, reading in the street, sketching buildings, jumping in the waters of the Mediterranean sea. By the time you open your eyes, you are already in love with Beirut, and only the distance will make you fully aware of the magic of this concrete lover.