Starting late, powering through

Dawn breaks hard in Beirut. 7AM - I’m ripped awake by a motorcycle revving up the narrow alley under my window, so loud it might as well have rolled over my head. There’s maybe 10, 15 seconds when I imagine I could still slip back into sleep, then the cacophony of the street descends in force. Honking cabs compete with the screams of children and the locust-like crackle of a downstairs radio at full volume. A trash truck rolls by—a juggernaut of a thing, looks like it was shipped in from a Soviet factory alongside crateloads of Kalashnikovs—and the roar of its engine leaves me momentarily breathless. There is a physical aspect to these sounds, as if their sheer magnitude were enough to achieve anatomical mass. It pins me to my bed like a giant hand.

Still, if I drag myself into the world of the living by 9:00, the day is off to an early start. The newspaper schedule, centered around afternoons and evenings, turns the clock face ninety-degrees to the left—noon to night is the new nine to five. Most people who ply the trade develop nocturnal habits, waking up at 11, 12 or one o’clock. I’m not there yet, but my nights tend to wear on later and later, and by default, my mornings as well.

For the moment at least, the street symphony keeps me on somewhat regular sleep cycle.

This is Beirut as I see it in the fourth week of my life here. They say that the emotions of love and hate can only be felt for things you know intimately, but I feel like I have a healthy degree of both for this place. It’s not a city of half-measures.

…To be continued