Winter arrived late this year in Lebanon — and the rain even later.
In the waiting period, I kept hearing the same lines over and over:
“How beautiful winter is! How romantic!”
And as I looked at the people saying these things, an old conviction resurfaced inside me:
Winter is made only for the rich.
You will never meet a “well-off” person — (they panic at the word rich) — who admits, or even realizes, that they belong to that category. Wealth is always relative.
But I use winter as a quiet scale in my head — a way to sort people socially.
Those who love winter fall into two groups: farmers… or the well-off.
And since agriculture in Beirut is slowly dying under the weight of concrete, the “winter romantics” we hear from nowadays are almost entirely people with comfort, money, and insulation.
After all —
How could someone who wakes up to a gentle mist falling over their garden, then sips coffee behind a window the size of a door, overlooking freshly washed greenery… possibly hate winter?
They shower in hot water without a thought, step into a covered garage where their car slept dry and warm, untouched by humidity or rain.
They drive out without feeling a single drop — neither on their heads nor on their high, four-wheel-drive cars built to glide over flooded streets.
They reach the office, park again in another sheltered garage, and climb up to their warm, dry workspace — winter still “romantic” in their minds.
In the evening, the scene repeats itself: maybe a padel match in a covered court, maybe a bit of shopping under bright mall lights.
Meanwhile, in a parallel world, stand those “cursed by circumstance,” the ones who hate winter.
These people begin counting rainy days from the very first cloud, anxiously awaiting the end of every storm. They fall asleep worrying about the next morning’s commute:
Will the road flood?
Will the highway close?
Will they make it to work,
or will the rain swallow them first?
When morning comes, they rush out, silently praying that the sky doesn’t pour its entire reservoir on them at the exact moment they’re waiting for a shared taxi or stepping out of their car to clock in.
And somewhere during the day, a heavy thought suddenly strikes:
Did I shut all the windows properly?
Did I close the curtains tight?
Will I return to a flooded home?
Winter, for them, becomes another spinning wheel of stress — added expenses, heating costs, transportation, leaks, repairs, floods — all beyond their ability to absorb.
People often try to bridge class divides in their daily conversations, and sometimes they even succeed… in every season except winter.
Winter exposes everything.
Rain dissolves the masks painted on our faces and reveals the raw, ugly truths of a world — and a country — where there is no fairness, no justice, no equality.
Sun or storm… under the same sky.
MORE
