maybe writing - issue 1
it's all a matter of choice
Choice...
I stand in the kitchen, wearing a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and a hoodie, the unforgiving cold starting to slither its way into our home. Kettle on the stove. I walk over to the cupboard and take out a jar of local coffee grinds and pour two spoons into my metallic French Press.
A piano playlist plays softly in the background, a new morning routine I set for myself as I slowly work towards healing past wounds and finding an inner calm to combat the anxiety crisis I’m in. My thoughts dance around the concept of choice. A six letter word that holds so much power over our lives.
The water comes to a boil. I walk over to the stove and turn off the flames, and pour the water into the French Press. Close the top and now I wait. I chuckle as the concept of choice cameos in the moment. Do the water molecules choose to merge with the coffee or is it inherent that the moment the water hits the coffee grinds a sizzling merger will inevitably happen?
I tire of standing in the kitchen so I grab the French Press and my chipped "Uncle Batman" coffee mug and walk into the living room. I sit at the table where I spend the majority of my day working. To my left, the gas heater fights against the sharp early morning cold and Milo sleeps on an arm chair we set up for him in the corner.
I look out the window and its pitch black something I'll have to get used to again as daylight savings approaches. As if to interrupt my daydreaming, my mind brings me back to the concept at hand... choice. The curse of free will. A freedom that we as a species have taken so lightly. Every moment we are alive, however, is at its core a choice. We choose to be alive.
Well, our bodies do. At any given moment, our bodies could simply choose to stop. They can choose to end, to cease function. To quit. Yes, this is the power of choice. I recall Gandalf's famous moment while talking to Frodo about Bilbo, Gollum, and the fate of the One Ring.
Choice…
We could go around in circles all day but it always goes back to choice. Life is about choice. Your soul chooses the Life it seeks before being born on this planet. Every day, you wake up you are faced with opportunities of choice. Do we choose to love? To be kind? To accept? To tolerate? Do we choose peace? Violence? Hate? Prejudice? Ignorance? Hope? Faith? Do we choose to change?
Every moment we take a breath we are firing synapses and making a choice. Yet, in our rushed lifestyles, in our anxiety-ridden stress-induced day-to- day, awareness of choice becomes irrelevant. The only choice is how do I endure and survive until tomorrow? That's the reality of living in Lebanon in 2024. For many Lebanese that's been the reality for decades. We call them the" War Generation".
“With that privilege,” Moe pressed on, his struggle with the subject making its way to his face, “you have something many of us will never have.”
His voice softened as he looked straight into my eyes, his intensity cutting through the space between us. “You have a choice, Amir.”
In this excerpt of a scene from a project I’m working on, I tackled the idea of choice with Amir and Moe through a different lens. A lens that haunts Lebanese millenials and Gen-Z — Do we choose to stay in Lebanon or do we choose to leave? A question that haunts us every single day. For some the haunting comes from fear of saying goodbye. For others it comes from fear of the unpredictable unknown that comes with staying in Lebanon.
For me the choice was heavy, but it was simple. I chose to stay. Though, unlike many I hold an American passport and could easily leave if I wanted to, but alas, I fell in love. I met him back in the early days of Covid and after I shamelessly thirst followed him on Instagram, our lives collided. A few weeks after commenting on each others' stories and chatting on and off we met over a weekend.
As inherent as it was for boiling water molecules to merge with those of the coffee grinds at the bottom of the French press, so too it was for he and I... we merged, connected, our fates intertwined and we both knew after more time had passed that we would always choose each other.
So, when my family all chose to move back to the US, each for a different reason, my choice was simple. I chose him. After decades of putting my family's needs first I chose myself. My happiness. I'd come to learn, however, that that choice would ultimately expose me to challenge, prejudice, and now... war.
The warm and richly textured scent of the coffee brings my dancing thoughts back to the present as I make the choice to reach over and pour some coffee into my chipped mug and slowly begin my day.
Currently Reading:
Currently Watching:
Dawson’s Creek - Season 3
The Great British Bake Off - Season 15
Dragon Ball DAIMA
Blue Lock
Ranma 1/2