Saturday, July 11th

Tape .001 - Concept JPAG

“I am walking around my neighbourhood in Beirut. I’m blending in with the dark sky, dark walls, dark alleys.

I’ve been on my feet for a while now.

As I pass through a narrow street, I notice a bright dot of light at the end of it. Something popping out of the surrounding pitch black.

A lit window!

Gazing at it, I slowly walk towards it, asking myself who might be the source of this little light, daring to shine in the middle of the night, as the city sleeps in deafening silence.

The word city makes me smile. What city? I also wonder. The months of lockdown shook the word’s meaning, where we the people have created little cities of our own in our tiny apartments. Our kitchens became restaurants, our bedrooms motels, our balconies a staycation, our rooftops our gyms and our hallways became our streets, linking all those places together.

With the apartments turned into cities, the people residing in them have turned into professionals. I am a chef now, a psychiatrist, an extrovert, a sports addict …

The first thought of being enclosed between four walls is overwhelming, though. But in hindsight, the experience could also be considered life-changing.”

The Lonely Chef

Tape .002 - Maria Sakr, New York

“My diet before the pandemic consisted of a lot of microwavables and quick fixes. On a good day, I would spend the extra time I had in the kitchen, putting together what would turn out to be a mediocre meal: beginner style and bland on the spices.

 after the lockdown was issued, I found myself spending most of my time in the place I feared the most: the kitchen. I decided to face my fears of cooking incompetence and started to try new recipes every day. A new day meant a new recipe or two. I invested in spices and pans and time. I went beyond tasteless toast and frozen fish. I made a delicious sanctuary out of my kitchen, where I was not the same old, lonely me. I was an award-winning chef, lonely, but a master behind the knife.”

Everyday Inn

Tape .003 - Hadi Mroue, Milan

“I’ve always wondered what it would feel like if I had a month all for myself, and dropping everything at hand instantly. No jobs, no work, no stress, no outings, no friends, just a month for myself.

Well it was just a couple of weeks before we went into lockdown, and I was on the phone with my friend just talking about our next step in life. “let’s do this, let’s do this, let’s go there, we’ll try that”. We just wanted to go places, big dreams, small steps, but no time to devote our lives to what we truly want. So, I told him “I just need a break from everything going on in my life. I need a month off”

But let me ask you about the hardest slap in the face you’ve encountered. Was it a girl rejecting you? Your girlfriend dumping you? Or your professor failing you?

Well, how about being slapped in the face by life itself? Telling you to shut the fuck up and go to your room, “you’re grounded!”. Though I haven’t done anything wrong, but we don’t always get what we deserve in life.

Thus all of a sudden, my bedroom turned into my asylum, my place of refuge, my daily diary, and my playground. Four walls surrounding me and my thoughts, with everything on the outside at halt. All signs of positivity jumped right out of the window.

Life itself just paused. But I unpaused. I unpaused all the buildup I had in the back of my mind, of what I want, what I need, and how I should get it.

I realized that this month that I had been asking for and thinking about, has officially started. And that slap in the face by life? Was a slap to wake me up for a reality check.

I am enjoying every single moment I spend inside my room during this time, whether it was productive or lazy. I may not have everything figured out when I leave my room, I may not fully know what changed in me or how I evolved, but what I know for a fact is that I am not coming out of my room the same.”

Rat Hole

Tape .004 - Khalil Osta, Paris

“My apartment got smaller and smaller and I started to feel trapped. I realized that I have nowhere to go except the balcony.

I started to wonder… where were the people? The streets were empty.

Which made me feel lonely on my little balcony.

Occasionally, I see a guy walking his dog a mother pushing her stroller… the kids running around the block. Sometimes I’d pick up my book and read a bit. Check Instagram, scroll through my WhatsApp contacts. And most importantly I never forgot to water my rose until it blossomed.

…. So, I started to feel less lonely.

After all, my balcony wasn’t that bad … actually, it feels really nice to be on my balcony.” 

Mental Fitness

Tape .005 - Wahib “Bibo” Charbel, Byblos

“It really resounded differently in every one of us. Being locked down, in quarantine, brought all different shares of nagging, misery, self-discovery or bliss...

My lockdown started two years ago when I had my first “adult” mental break down. We’ve all had our share! It’s basically the sum of how we’re raised, where we live, what we lived through and how we coped with it...

But it hits you eventually, and trust me it hits hard!

You lockdown!

You distance yourself, you question your entire life, your beliefs, your decisions, your thoughts, even the closest people to your heart...

It’s kind of a system crash where the error seems nothing and everything.

Instinctively we choose to fight back and survive,

And it was my time to recover, so I took the challenge up a notch, decided to breathe out of feeling constantly blue and focus on personal growth:

Mental, emotional and physical...

Quarantine brought the luxury of time to make that happen, and living in an apartment amidst the urban surrounding, the only open space left to make it happen was the roof, which eventually became my personal gym.

I started with small reps and paced it upwards in a comfortable manner.

My roof gym made me realize, growth on every level becomes a constant and continuous limitless work, and “lockdown” is a state of mind, harsh but well needed!”