Scents and Memories of Bilad Al-Sham

In Latakia, there was a bar tucked away in a fragile corner of the world, and I saw it with eyes that still tremble at the memory. There, the sea lowers its voice: the waves, tired of wrestling with the rocks, become gentle caresses, brushing against you as if they have known you forever. The beach lay untouched, hidden from the careless eyes of tourists, and the mornings arrived with a soft breeze; the sun did not burn, but slid across the skin like a promise kept.

The bar was small, humble, yet every detail spoke of quiet beauty. A few straw-roofed bungalows, open to the sky and the passage of time, welcomed those who wanted to sleep to the rhythm of the sea. On the tables, Syrian food unfolded like a hymn to life: vegetarian, halal, an explosion of colors, as if the land itself were offering itself without defense.

Tasting that cuisine, I realized it was more than flavor. It spoke of patience and abundance: pale zucchinis, eggplants as deep as the night, cucumbers that grow nowhere else, fresh parsley in endless piles, pomegranates opened like hearts, and ancient olives. Rose water, jasmine water: not merely drunk, but held in the soul. Every scent, every color, every dessert left its imprint on the heart like a secret no one could steal.

I had always known that the perfect place to live was there, in Bilad Al-Sham, the land that gave birth to our history. Yet that same land is now wounded, plundered, devoured by the interests of others, by insatiable greed, by a sick desire to accumulate, erasing all it cannot possess.

The bar has vanished from maps, but not from memory. It lives in the dreams of those who knew it, in worlds where the entire world can become a garden — a Jannah on Earth. Wooden tables and chairs, dried roses, jasmine blooms at the center of every tablecloth, children laughing as they leap through the waves, powerless yet invincible: these images linger, like a heartbeat that never stops.

For me, this is the world we should all long for. Perhaps it exists, but only in Nora’s Garden, in the garden of the mind, where everything is possible, where everything leaves its mark on the heart. True life, I have learned, is not outside: it is within us. And those who inhabit it can watch the light change, and the world itself transform into a place more gentle, more true, more ours.