I’ve lived a nomadic life for a year and a half now. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that it never gets easier to leave a place, to leave a project, to part from friends.
I want to thank everyone who came to our workshops at Beit al-Atlas and near Burj Barajneh, everyone who contributed writing or drawings or rap or food or good company to our project. Every person I had the privilege of meeting during my month-long residency in Beirut left their mark on me in their own unique way. I learned so much from your words, lessons that I’m taking with me as I move on to my next horizon, my next writing project, the rest of this still-new year. The Beit al-Atlas zine is out of my hands now (keep an eye out for updates from Beit!), but the words that you all contributed, read to me, and gave me the honor of receiving and commenting on are still with me. Thank you for trusting me with your words, your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences. Thank you for letting me hold space for you and for teaching me about your worlds, your cities, your hearts. I hope that, together with Beit al-Atlas, we succeeded in building a home infinite enough to hold all of us, if even for a few afternoons.
This is the third part of a 3-part series of essays about my residency at Beit al-Atlas. Read the first two essays here and here.
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