As a person who carries multiple hats, so much has changed in most if not all the areas in my life the last few years, I kinda exchanged those older hats with new ones (like many other residents of Lebanon and elsewhere in the world, yet very few Lebanese share details of that life shift I feel we need to record more of). This here is a note for my future self and for the random internet reader or the friend, online friend who used to follow this blog.
My daughter is now 4 years old! and she defines a big part of who I am and what I do everyday, trying to bring up this little human the best way I know. So being a mom and an artist and designer and educator and small business owner all so exciting though it is sometimes too much to manage while keeping a blog. So I am not re-opening this blog, I am just making an entry today, because I just revisited the older posts and appreciated having them there.
But as these sporadic posts tell, I would have loved to be blogging more, I remember when blogging was THE THING and some entries from this blog and my other blog were often among the most read blog posts in Lebanon, as reported by the twitter account @lebaneseblogs and website Lebanese Blogs (by Mustapha Hamoui if I remember right?).
So,... the short version:
Since my daughter was born, we moved out of Beirut to Mansourieh, 2 days later the 4 of August blast happened in Beirut port and destroyed our Beirut home and her bedroom, for covid19 lockdown, my daughter had her first steps on the rooftop of our place in Beirut, then we spent summer in the mountains - in Rejmeh, then Mansourieh, then with the economic crisis in Lebanon getting worse by the day, we moved to Ottawa, Canada, where my mother-in-law was sick, and we missed saying goodbye by a few days making it only to the funeral. We then moved to Centretown Ottawa to a place of our own, after staying a few months with the family.
As a designer, I was really inspired when I was pregnant and the first months of H. life I created some of the first jewelry items and remember talking to the seamstress working on the wool ponchos all while waiting in the hospital for baby to decide to come to the world.
But, later on as we went from home to home and managed the blast's trauma, the economic crisis and covid, things had to slow down. To manage a local inspired design business set in Lebanon while being in Canada seemed too much, so I slowed down Lebanese production for SCENE Beirut (not stopping though!) and set up an Etsy shop (SCENE Studio Works) for international orders and made to order production.
Now past the memory lane rant, actual timely news:
I am writing this from my home in Ottawa, also to say I am taking part in a
Christmas fair in Montreal this weekend! and it is very exciting to be among other creatives and meeting the crowds!
Double excitement for meeting others who also have known Lebanon/Beirut and can relate to whatever runs through my mind whenever I am walking the supermarket aisle and see "Pita Bread" or "Mediterranean Hummus dip" and smirk while looking to the ceiling ;)
