The past few days have been packed with frantic calls to relatives in Beirut and Nabatiyaa. My great-uncle Abu-Mustafa, two of his wives, and all seven of his children are afraid to leave their basement bomb shelter, scared into submission by columns of white smoke and the shaking roars of far-off bombs. The house next door, they tell us, has already been hit and they know, they just know, that they are next. Our cousins Abbas and Ali took a minute out of dodging bombs to call us. I keep picturing that in my head, two young, hairy men running from their house to a car, one mumbling "bism'illah irof men ira heem" (heaven knows I spelled that wrong) over and over, the other one clutching his cell phone to his ear, telling the worried, peculiar American cousins on the other end that yes, they were okay, and yes, that was a bomb they just heard, but no, he could not talk right now.

My grandmother has, for the very first time in her life, been praying.


(And I have, true to form, managed to turn this all into a huge self-conscious existential crisis. This is different than all the faceless people killed in September 11th; this is more real, somehow, than any tsunami or hurricane. I find it so distressing, mostly because I've been there. I know these people, I've hugged that old man, I've argued with that cab driver, I've played cards with those children. Only a year ago, I pulled my suitcase through the Beirut airport. The airport is up in smoke. Those little kids? Probably missing limbs. This is so upsetting.)