I, The Divine

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My grandfather named me for the great Sarah Bernhardt. He considered having met her in person the most important event of his life. He talked about her endlessly. By the age of five, I was able to repeat each of his stories verbatim. And I did.

My grandfather was a simple man

At the age of thirteen, the age of discovery, I was moved from an all-girl Catholic school to a boys’ school. My father decided I needed to have English, not French, as my primary language, so he transferred me to the best school in the city. It was all boys until I showed up. They wanted to integrate it and I was the guinea pig. What a guinea pig.

I was not the only girl in the school, but I was the only one in my class, all five sections. The four other girls were in the upper classes. It was life-changing culture shock.

In October of 1973, I arrived for my first day of school

Nineteen seventy-three was a strange year. I cut my hair short, which drove my stepmother crazy. The Lebanese army went nuts and started bombing the PLO, a harbinger of things to come. I left those wacky Carmelite nuns and entered an American-bankrolled school where I was the only girl in the whole class. I also met Fadi, who changed my life forever.

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