Un Sospiro
An Ode to my Lebanon. My heart weeps for you…
We wait all day for sunset to come. Without a handy weather app, it’s a tricky guessing game as to when exactly the sun will plummet behind the jagged white mountains. At six in the evening, I yell excitedly to my family that it’s time to go, my heart racing with anticipation—I’ve waited all year for this trip. As my dad drives down the bumpy dirt roads of North Governorate, Lebanon, in the village of Chatine, my heart soars. I’m overjoyed to finally be home. As we arrive at the mountain, the sun still shines bright yellow in the sky, like a ripe lemon waiting to be picked. We’re early, but that doesn’t matter. My jaw hurts from grinning as I glance up, eyeing the rocky path that leads to the top. We begin our climb, stopping now and then to take photos of the emerald lakes surrounding the base of the mountain, and smelling the wild violet flowers growing in clumps on the rocky terrain.
As we reach the summit, I run along the top of the mountain to the end of the cliff where a large, white stone cross stands, unwavering, like my roots: always there, a silent, comforting presence reminding me of where I come from, that my Lebanese heritage will always be a part of me. I climb up onto the base of the cross and press against the cold surface, a cool relief to the sweltering air around me. Leaning there, I just sit in silence, looking out at the view around me. I don’t care that the rough air has whipped my hair into knots, or that I don’t have anything to connect me to the rest of the world. I feel new again, broken made whole.
I am home.
Finally, as the sun begins to set, tears form in my eyes. As if someone had punched me, the air leaves my lungs, but not from the exhaustion of climbing the mountain—from awe. As the glowing sun sinks gradually back into the earth, the sky slowly changes from rich blues to vivid pinks, bright oranges and soft yellows, like paint spilling across the planet’s very own canvas. It is breathtaking.
My Lebanese heritage, like the sky that evening, is beautiful. It is more than the greys and reds of war, destruction, and poverty that the news constantly portrays. It is a whole rainbow of dazzling colors across a summer sky. Lebanon is important to me, and I want to share my image of my home in everything I say and do. That sunset on top of the mountains is who I am, who Lebanon is: free, no matter what anyone else says about her.
It is beautiful to me.
