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6th entry - Motherhood & Pregnancy in Wartime Series

December 8 2024

As the plane descended, I leaned over from my middle seat, trying to glimpse Beirut below. I squinted, scanning the landscape, looking for any signs of change, any visible scars. The wheels touched the ground, and we were officially back. No one clapped. Maybe it’s because no one did that anymore, or maybe it’s because, like me, they were holding their breath.

We climbed into the cab, and as we drove through the city, everything felt familiar and unfamiliar. The streets, the buildings - this should’ve been home, but something was off. I kept waiting for the unexpected, something to confirm the fear that lingered, like the sudden sound of an explosion or seeing something fall from the sky. We drove down the Salim Slem bridge, and the driver casually pointed out a half-destroyed building. “That’s the Cola explosion,” he said, giving us a morbid tour of blast sites. My chest tightened.

What does home even mean anymore? Is there a science to it? The right formula? Is it just geography, a place you return to because it holds your memories? Or is it more about the people, the safety, the feeling of belonging? Two months away - was it enough time for it to feel different? Or did the war accelerate this disconnection? I didn’t know but it was all very disorienting. Imad was so happy to be back. I tried to leech off his excitement.

As we pulled up to our building, the taxi driver looked at me through the rearview mirror and said, “Hey, I was the one who picked you up two and a half months ago when you were leaving. And now, I’m the one bringing you back. Can you imagine?” I checked the app and saw that he was right. The same driver, the same ride, but everything felt different. So much time had passed, but somehow, it felt like no time at all. It was like I’d never left and like I’d left for even longer than I did.

And maybe that’s the strangest part of all: how home can both change and stay the same. You can return to the place you once knew so well, and yet, feel like a stranger there. It’s unsettling how the things that once defined home - the streets, the walls, the familiar routines - can seem so different, even when they look the same.

That’s the science of home, I think. The way it’s built not just on walls and streets, but on the people, the routines, the safety. I thought it was simple, but now, after all this upheavel, I realize it’s more fragile than that. Home is not just where you return to; it’s how you feel when you’re there, who you’re with, and what you carry inside you. And sometimes, when the world shifts beneath you, even the most familiar of places can feel like they no longer belong to you.