Beirutista

I held off writing this piece because I wanted a little whiff of 2022 before hastening to assign any labels or meaningless wishes to the new year. It's the same song and dance every end of year, isn’t it? The year comes to a close, and we almost too giddily sweep it out, as though it should be discarded with the rubbish in our dustbins. Then we proceed to usher in the coming year, imploring it to "treat us well," or to "behave." Because, you know, that personification boosts our chances of negotiating assured success. If I'm being honest, 2020 and 2021 just blended into each other, like one indistinguishable continuum. In fact, my perception of time over those two years is very wishy-washy. In my mind, 2019 still seems like last year, and everything that's transpired since fell into the span of one seemingly endless, hopeless, wretched annum.  I attribute it to simply how bizarre this epoch of the pandemic has been. Covid's hold over the world, ove