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@birsifuni

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• on the road with a question •

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10|12 • Valerie

Memories. We don’t see them coming until—flashing before our eyes, in a careless whisper, unforeseen yet unstoppable—a photo, a song, or a scent carries us into the past. A wave of nostalgia, the yearning for the return of a foregone moment in time. A desire, a dream, once upon a time unfulfilled.

What happens to our dreams as they come true? And what happens to us?

Soul-searching summer days of 2021. Five weeks of breaking the rules, fulfilling desires, if only for ourselves. Looking back, it’s difficult to grasp that we lived these moments, that one distant day they may well turn into the five most exciting weeks of a life well lived, and that they have passed now.

A past desire, now stored, irrecoverable, in nostalgia, as we are changed and shaped by the burden and lightness of making dreams come to life.

It was no less real, only that the desire has a sensory memory now. And that somehow the dream wasn’t disenchanted. That, looking back, ironically, it feels even more like a dream than before. 🤍

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📸 @azzyarmagan
🖋 @valmarouche by @birsifuni

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28|09 • Louisa

Apparaître (fr., to appear; to reveal yourself)

Appearing naturally; venturing out; trying to gaze meaningfully; playing with losing and taking control – these are some of the things we did in front of @baraa_haddad1‘s camera this summer.

It was unnerving at times, and also somewhat thrilling. So much so that Valerie, Asligül and I now look back at these frames with nostalgia: “Remember how everything seemed so much more exciting in front of the camera?” - “Yes! When I went to the supermarket yesterday, I was wondering whether anything about it was worth revealing and sharing with others.” – “Well, maybe we should admit to ourselves that our everyday lives, per se, are not interesting enough to be filmed?”

Admittedly, we miss the tension of appearing naturally whilst overseeing the narrative that we have written parts of. Revealing ourselves in front of a camera to shoot a documentary is a challenging journey. We have only just embarked…

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📸 @baraa_haddad1
🖋 @louisa.mammeri taken in Beirut, Lebanon by @birsifuni

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21|09 • Valerie

While we were on the road, shooting the first chapter of this documentary, Louisa and I were confronted with the hilarious need to explain over and over again that «no, we are not engaged, married or even a couple.»

Some of you will be aware of just how terrible a romantic match we would make and I hope you are smiling now. Of course, this in turn makes our friendship so golden.

Louisa shares my desire to roam, to adventure, to do things others wouldn’t, to take that risk, to be out there, to question (albeit in different ways), to be different, to drop uncomfortable truths and to stare them down.

I’ve been told, forever & by many people, that I am «too something». Too emotional, too optimistic, too cynical, too forgiving, too smart, too fast, too curvy, too direct, too nice, too quiet, too sad, too young, too shy, too complex, just too much. And Louisa is the first friend I ever had who rarely makes me feel I am too much, and in that sense, yes, she makes me feel like I have somewhere to come home.

I‘d like to believe that it is what makes people think we are more than friends; what they notice in our interactions, our smiles, our openness, our comfort:

We are home together, everywhere.

And when I ask Louisa, «should we go?,» she almost always says yes.

And when we go, we rarely just go.

We run.

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📸 @azzyarmagan
🖋 @valmarouche taken in Akyaka by @birsifuni

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16|09 • Aslıgül • Ankara

When does a home… stop being a home?

I’ve been in Turkey for the last six weeks now, and apart from time spent on the road shooting this documentary, every night, I’ve gone to bed in my childhood bedroom. My childhood home. But it feels strange – hollow. Uncanny.

The house has been emptied of most of its furniture. Its inhabitants have moved on. I was the first to leave, followed by my brother. My parents left a couple of years ago. Still, the house looms large, inhabited by the ghosts in my imagination. Somehow, their presence is even more vivid the emptier the house becomes. Every time I stare at this corner, that corner, my mind plays home videos on Super 8 film.

I have always had trouble letting things go. I have kept every elementary school notebook, every ticket stub, every card, every personal note scribbled on a scrap of paper. My subconscious seems to think that without their physical reminders, my memories will fade. And what is identity, if not memory compounded?

Everyone else in my family is more than happy to move on, allow this home to be filled with new life. Try as I might, the thought of saying goodbye – leaving for the US and seeing this place for the last time in my life – brings me to tears as I write this. Which is ironic, selfish even, since I was the first one out the door. Maybe it was so easy to leave because I knew I could always come back. Now, I’m not so sure.

Of course, the house is just a microcosm. While I know I’m lucky to be able to return to my country – it’s not for sale, as far as I’m aware – every time I return, I recognize it less and less. And I feel frightened. Lost. Just like the house, its inhabitants are moving on. Some elsewhere, others – well, none of us know where those souls go.

So here we are, back at square one. When does a home stop being a home? I suppose it’s when the people who made it home leave for good.

They say you only live as long as the last person to remember you. I am determined to remember it all.

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@azzyarmagan taken in Ankara, Turkey by @birsifuni

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09|09 • Louisa • Berlin

“AltogetherDifferent Square” (Allesandersplatz) is the title of this building at Berlin Alexanderplatz. It caught my attention when I returned to my physical home in my hometown Berlin one evening this week.

In fact, I seek temporary homes in which I can be altogether different. As a binational woman who grew up negotiating the two cultures of my parents, I found myself filling the space in between both by looking for experiences similar to my parents’ cultures; yet different enough to be a stranger. So far this has taken me to study and work in Europe, North Africa and West Asia.

Ideally, this has made me a woman of several cultures, a negotiator, a friend, a stranger and an in betweener.

Home is, for me, the process of appearing as a stranger first, and then finding surprising similarities and connections.

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@louisa.mammeri taken in Berlin, Germany by @birsifuni

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07|09 • Valerie • 🌚

we were planning to share how it feels to be back «home» this week. to look back and ahead as @azzyarmagan so gracefully did. but I am lying here on my carpet and I just can‘t find the words.

now you have to know that this carpet very rarely fails to help me find the words. having this carpet in my apartment is also largely what has kept me connected to my grandfather from Tripoli throughout the past years.

I have found many words on this carpet. I fill page after page, night after night, sometimes. but not today. today I found no words at all, and certainly none on «being back home».

and then I realized that I can’t find the words because I don’t feel like I am «home».

and the point is that I hope we may embrace the wisdom in such empty pages. today, tonight, tomorrow – whenever the words don’t find us or we don’t find them. because if only we listen, maybe there’s still something they’re telling us in their silence.

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@valmarouche taken in Berlin, Germany by @birsifuni

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04|09 • Aslıgül

Sometimes – in fact, let’s be honest most times – it’s impossible to see where you are, or where you’re going, without stepping back, taking measure, studying, considering – reconsidering. There’s something magical about distance that puts everything into perspective. The ocean that seems so overwhelming when you’re struggling to stay afloat looks like a calm pool when you take in the horizon from a plane window.

The last few weeks have been a rollercoaster of emotions, and we’re so grateful to the people who let us in to share those emotions with them, and made space for us to share our own. We're grateful to now have this time to reflect and grow. One thing we’re all sure of is that we’ve started something worthwhile. We may not have the answer yet, or even the exact question, but we’re on our way.

Kierkegaard once said that life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. We hope you’ll join us as we look in both directions.

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words and photo @azzyarmagan by @birsifuni

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18|08 • Valerie • Ehden

home, sometimes, is a very simple thing: the place you can find food. the place you’re offered food. or the place you’re offering it. to friends, to family, to strangers.

strangers that, one day, may become friends. friends that, if will be, turn into your family.

or strangers that are family—family that is estranged to you. a family you never met.

still you offer. still you accept. in generosity or in humility, either way, in togetherness, you sit, you eat, you laugh, you conspire.

and you know that nothing is more important right now. just fruits on a plate and friends making plans, toasting to each other’s secrets.

a simple, transient home, beginning and ending with seats taken at the table; colorized by open secrets, consciously left untouched.

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@valmarouche taken in Ehden, Lebanon by @birsifuni

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17|08 • Louisa • Tripoli

I am curious. With time, I came to realize that this has granted me some of the most rewarding revelations, but it has also taught me some cautionary tales.

When we went on the road to dig deeper into Valerie’s family history in Tripoli, Lebanon, we kept returning to the carpet shop owned by her relatives since 1944. Each time we asked for more details in order to gain a better picture of the lives and trajectories of family members who cannot tell their own stories any longer. At some point, the current owner of the shop - an incredibly resourceful storyteller - asked: “Why do you keep asking for this one letter? Do you think I didn’t tell you the truth?”

The truth is, we don’t know very much about what precisely happened over 60 years ago. We do know that we want to build good relationships in the present. Even if it means that some details of the past remain in the past?

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@louisa.mammeri taken in Tripoli, Lebanon by @birsifuni

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15|08 • Beirut

«It looks quite normal, actually. And beautiful»—a text from Valerie’s brother who was following our journey to Lebanon.

But nothing was normal. We arrived in Beirut by night, met by dark streets. It was true: no electricity, no wifi, no a/c. 30 degrees in our Airbnb. A hot and dusty night ahead. Accompanied by new friends we made our way to one of the bars that remain open. Even the streets that were vivid on «previous bad days» are now quiet and empty, they say. Having grown up in Beirut, they never saw the city like this.

«They are brave girls to come to Lebanon at this time,» remarks an elderly distant relative from Tripoli. Are we?

Not knowing what to expect but compelled not to cancel, our decision still feels like a gamble.

But for all of those leaving, rien ne va plus. taken in Beirut, Lebanon by @birsifuni

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14|08 • Valerie

My mind keeps replaying the words that have been used to describe what I am doing right now—a third generation seeking family ancestry. But, a third generation what? I am not an immigrant. Nor was my father. I am not even sure I am allowed to call myself a part of the diaspora. Yet I am compelled to find traces of my grandfather who must have left Tripoli in the late 1950s/early 1960s. A grandfather I know almost nothing about because nobody will or is able to tell me.

Do I have a right to do this?

When planning our journey, of course we didn’t know that, by the time we get to August, coasts would be burning in Turkey and Lebanon would have plunged even deeper into darkness.

Louisa talked to a Lebanese friend on the phone yesterday. «We are being fired from our own country». Earlier today: a text message, «are you guys sure you want to come?» So, what is it to do this? To do it at all, and specifically to do it right now?

Some of what I’ve been told: Crazy. Absurd. Inspirational. Orientalist. Be sensitive. Amazing. Good luck. It’s almost comical. I am proud of you. Don’t worry. You’re going to have fun. Did you think that through?

Further words didn’t fit this list and others, I suppose, were thought but not said.

Some more that have been said: «There is very little bandwidth for such projects, particularly originated by people who haven't lived in Lebanon.»

Do I have a right to do this?

I didn’t grow up speaking Arabic. I didn’t spend childhood summers in Lebanon.

I did answer hundreds of inquiries about my last name. Because of this name I was interrogated for two hours at Ben Gurion airport before granted entry to Israel to attend a wedding. I always smile politely when people, surprised, ask me if I am «really entirely German?». The list goes on.

We are flying to Beirut tonight.

Do I have a right to «return»?

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@valmarouche • photo by @azzyarmagan taken in Akyaka Gökova Muğla by @birsifuni

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12|08 • Valerie

Sisterhood remains a mystery to me.

How would I feel calling someone a sister? — to grow up with a sister, to fight with a sister? To bargain over power, to find ourselves in the other, to share our clothes and do each other‘s hair. To travel and to cry in a sister‘s arms.

To challenge each other in becoming a woman without letting go of the girl inside. To embrace our feminine desires without neglecting the origin of their oppression.

To love a sister as I love my brothers. To forgive another woman; as a sister. How would it feel?

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@valmarouche taken in Yenifoça by @birsifuni

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