Coming Home To You (Damascus)
Photo by Sahaba
To understand Damascus, one has to understand the amount of demographic categorizations there are. Class, sect, race, gender, ethnicity, address, family name, job title, degree, and so on. People categorize those around them based on any of these categories and then apply certain rules to how different they’ll behave around them, or how to perceive any of their behaviors.
The elderly in Damascus pretend their categorizing is about how long one’s connection to the ancient city is, they joke about whether the block written on your ID is within the ancient city’s walls or outside. Yet, a rich Palestinian-Syrian who speaks French is more respected than a Damascus born Kurd living on the outskirts of the city. The mix I was born into put me at a privileged point in the Damascus scale; music lessons, summer trips, trilingual, known family name, not conservative, and considered good looking by the Damascus standards of beauty because of my light skin. My brown mother tells me stories of how strangers treated her because they’d assume she was our maid.
It’s one of many unspoken rules of Damascus. We mysteriously learn who to talk to about what and who to not talk to, what to talk about and what to not talk about. With whom we can share our openness and lack of religious behaviors and with whom we have to pretend we’re good Muslims. Damascus had women who only wore hijabs in certain neighborhoods, secret marriages, and families who hide what they buy in different bags so they’re not envied by neighbors. Damascus is always watching, we’re observed by everyone. We slowly adhere to some rules even when we don’t believe in them, until one day we’re easily able to figure out one’s demographics simply from their last name. The rules are unspoken of, until a young couple from slightly different backgrounds decide to get married, and have to face their families and endure the arrogance of Damascus’ older generations. Although in reality there are only three important categories: the wealthy politicians/regime, the rich that benefit from them, and then everyone else.
The other part to Damascus’ harshness was the dictatorship, and the tight grip Hafez had on the city. I remember when my parents had the talk with me; Assad is a taboo, and we do not talk politics outside of our home. My parents grew up in the 80s, a time when some of their friends disappeared for buying smuggled bananas or for slipping in front of random street vendors and taxi drivers about the regime. The endless stories my family told about the cruelty of the Assad’s regime after closing the windows and disconnecting phones usually end with nostalgic stories from my grandmother about a version of Syria I’m not familiar with. A version before Assad, where they had hope after the independence. Her eyes flicker and she goes back to a different time, I carried that nostalgia without understanding.
Nevertheless, I fell in love with Damascus during my teenage years. It was where I found myself. My favorite music store was in the old city, I’d buy the newest pop albums and listen to them as I walked around on rainy days. Damascus is a chaos of scents, stories and mystery. You travel through thousands of years at every corner. The city is intense in terrifying and alluring ways. Regardless of how many times I might’ve walked in a street, it will have new stories to tell me. Through subtle art messages, ancient book stores, and bars in centuries-old buildings I heard untold stories of people like me also walking these streets. To the views of Qasyoun I got to understand myself, my queerness, and my place in the world.
Damascus was also where I fell in love with my soulmate, specifically by Bab Touma. We came from the same background, were both shy, silly, and flooded with emotions. We naturally felt comfortable together. I vividly remember the warmth she made me feel back then, the excitement I felt whenever we were about to meetup. She eased all the pain of being a different queer boy. We loved each others’ curly hair, and escaped school to complain about our families and daydream together. She introduced me to shishas, and I helped her make her Facebook profile. We have the silliest memories of roaming a harsh city and making it ours.
She and I better understood ourselves and each other the older we got. We’d sit in cafes that were once traditional damascene houses, smoke shishas, and talk about our future plans when we leave. Even before the revolution, we didn’t think we could belong in the city. We were two artists, wanting to rebel and explore all the art and freedom. And although Damascus is an art treasure, it wasn’t free. We wanted to live together, wear and do whatever we want. It was heartbreaking to realize not being able to discover ourselves in the city we loved. She and I didn’t have to wear any of the many masks we change daily in Damascus and we wanted a lifetime of that. The revolution then came, and things escalated so quickly that any hope we had wasn’t enough to even process.
I got my first job on the day she passed her high school exam, and when I came out to her we celebrated in a city that smelled like war and death. During those college years, Damascus became even more intense between checkpoints, kidnaps and random bombs falling in every neighborhood. Like many Syrians at the time, the only thing we were able to do was to escape. She and I escaped the war, our families and the pain of being a Syrian together. We got drunk to the sound of shells, talked about boys together, and danced in the streets of the old city. She cared for me when my parents were detained in Assad’s prisons, and I gave her support at every visa interview.
Not long after those juvenile memories, we hugged in a parking lot as I began my journey to exile. I used all my tears on the way to Beirut, not knowing when I’ll be able to hold her again. We talked on the phone, almost daily for the last seven years. We went through relationships, career growth, immense hardships, and self-discovery together yet afar. We strangely found a way to care for each other in our new realities. I understand her struggle in being stuck in Damascus, the city I dream of walking in every night, and she found a way to care for my painful exile. The thing we both hope happens for her. She awaits her exile chance and I wait for my residency documents.
In my memories, no one smiles in Damascus. Yet, underneath all the layers of hardships, there’s a beautiful tenderness, often random, as random as the Shawarma vendor. As an exiled damascene, I tend to reminisce and think often about my hometown. I stare at pictures of streets I wandered in my youth. I practice going from my house to my grandma’s house in my head to see if I remember how. I do. My lover tells me it is not the same city I once knew and loved. The thin kindness is gone; it’s just the scowls now. The city I love simply doesn’t exist anymore, and that took years to process. How do I romanticize something that is no longer there?
A friend asked me the other day whether I would go back if I could. It was very difficult explaining why my answer will forever be yes, but to a version of Damascus that has yet to exist. I dream of a free Damascus, one that holds space for all the history, and the future with just laws for all its citizens. Endless music, art, and love. An authentic Damascus where everyone can be, without needing to hide. A city in which instead of feeling observed, we feel admired. Maybe we’ll even get wild and smile often.
Later that night, I felt like I lied to my friend. The truth is I would go right now if I could. I just wouldn’t be going home to the city, I would be coming home to the love of my life. My exile is twice as harsh. I look for her eyes whenever I’m happy or sad, and the scent of her perfume is engraved in my memory. Seven years later, and my face still lights up when she calls. Her beautiful face glitches on my screen--it’s something any Syrian is completely used to. I study her face and try to take in any damascene imagery as she tells me about her day.
The truth is, if the choice was between Damascus and her, I will take her any day. In the meantime, I will gladly enjoy your glitching face on my screen. Until one day, soon, we’ll come home together, somewhere.