The Sudden Interruption of Personal Spaces
Rude awakenings, what I miss about a city, and the jewels you won't find anywhere but here.
Dear reader,
This week I had the pleasant experience of:
dealing with an overly picky dog (I have to feed my Shih Tzu like a toddler, and repent for all the nuisance I must have caused as a toddler. I thought vowing to never have kids would circumvent this, but clearly karma finds a way to get back at you.)
telling my grandmother at least 30 times to stop cleaning the house so that it’s ‘all clean for the househelp’
have people offer to pay me in exposure (in 2023!) only to rescind the entire offer in the first place
discovering I am now old enough to have exes who are married
and run into an old flame in my favourite coffeehouse.
All in all, not so optimal.
There is a very special relationship that exists between a girl and her favourite coffee. That relationship compounds exponentially when you factor in her favourite seat, by the window, with the leather sofa instead of the hard wooden chairs.
So when I walked in, painting supplies and writing supplies swept into my backpack so that I could escape my Apartment of Responsibility to my Coffeehouse of Calm, I was looking forward to putting my AirPods in and just writing out all my worst thoughts.
Going up the staircase, I saw 2 pairs of shoes under my favourite table and thought ‘shit.’ But when I saw a very familiar pair of trousers, followed by an uncanny blazer and a moronic skull attached to those pair of shoes - I was not just annoyed, I was pissed.
There are two kinds of writers: the ones who come alive in social settings, learning all the most interesting things about the lives around them, and the ones who take a back seat from it all - preferring to write their own dreams. I like to be the former, although it can be hard to find common ground with most people I’ve met here.
One of the best parts of living in a city is the consistent anonymity it provides. People don’t know your name, and they don’t want to. For a writer, invisibility like that is equal to sitting up high in a tree, watching over the jungle and capturing all of its candid happenings. It’s the perfect vantage point.
Contrary to a big city, I find myself in a country that is very similar to the fictional town of Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls. It’s full of vibrant, quirky characters, each adorable and unique - and they all make an appearance in every. single. episode. While this is comforting on TV, I often run out of patience for pleasantries. Some are well masked, behind genuine smiles and shallow questions. Others are blunt: just prodding for this week’s round of chai time gossip. People who enjoy this kind of masala roam all around the place, the ones who don’t end up becoming recluse for their own mental peace.
That being said, I have never met such genuine people on one island. The degrees of separation are small, and so the care in these interactions are warm, ever-glowing. You will never feel as valued and deeply seen as you will in Bahrain. From some endless karaoke nights, to fabulous dinners, these people are the ones who make this place worth it. You know who you are 🙂
Sending bear hugs,
Kaav.