My Head In the Clouds

A strange thing happens when you live near a war. A day with a blast is unsettling, of course. But a day without one can feel just as uneasy. Silence, too, has a voice, and sometimes it whispers the question we are all trying not to ask: is it over, or is it just quiet for now?

Ever since 2020, the world seems to have stopped rotating normally. It feels as if it is flipping on its axis instead. A pandemic that brought the world to a standstill. Wars erupting across regions that once seemed distant. Planes falling out of the sky. Artificial intelligence suddenly reshaping how we work and think. The familiar rhythms of the world have begun to feel slightly unsteady.

And now, here in the Middle East, war sits uncomfortably close to home. A distant boom. Windows rattling faintly. Jets across the sky. Emergency alerts on phones.

The city seems to have developed a soundtrack of its own.

Days and nights merge, and small noises feel amplified. Furniture scraping across floors. Car engines revving. Machines humming. Conversations drifting through balconies. Somewhere, laughter echoes a little louder than usual. The city is alive, restless, alert.

Yet festivals are celebrated. Children run through parks. Friends gather in cafes. Families still walk along the Marina in the evenings.

What has fascinated me most during these days is not the war itself, but the way people respond to living near it.

Some people laugh it off, sharing jokes and memes, sometimes dark, sometimes absurd, but always in an attempt to lighten the mood. Humour, after all, is one of our greatest defences against fear. Others cope more quietly. Long evening walks. A sudden urge to stay busy. Cleaning, organizing, rearranging small corners of life as if order inside the house might restore order outside it.

Some have booked hotel rooms in quieter parts of the UAE, away from dense neighbourhoods, seeking a sense of calm. Others have chosen to temporarily leave the country, returning to their home nations until the uncertainty settles. Then there are those who continue as if nothing unusual is happening at all.

No reaction feels absurd. Fear expresses itself differently in each of us.

Amid all this uncertainty, another human instinct quietly emerges: reassurance.

Some people find comfort in the UAE’s stability and governance. Others turn to faith, trusting that a higher power will protect them. Many carry a quieter belief, sometimes rational, sometimes hopeful, that danger will somehow bypass them. “It won’t happen to me.” This may or may not be denial, but a survival mechanism. Living in permanent fear is not sustainable.

Thankfully, humans have remarkably short memories, which is not a flaw. It may be the very thing that allows us to move forward.

War may be unfolding not too far away. Yet in this city of expats and locals, life insists on moving forward. Resilience is not always heroic. Sometimes it is simply the decision to wake up the next morning and live normally in an abnormal world. And tomorrow, most of us will do exactly that.