The place you crossed off

In Ras Al Khaimah there is a fish restaurant on the waterfront that a certain kind of resident will not set foot in, because of one meal six years ago.

The fish was overcooked. The waiter was rude. The bill had something extra on it. That evening became the restaurant's name in their mouths, and it has stayed there.

Since then, almost everything that made that evening has gone. The cook has left. The waiter is in another country. The menu has been rewritten twice, the kitchen rebuilt, the room repainted. The only things still the same are the sign over the door and the verdict held by people who have not been back.

People do this with places, and they do it with each other even more. A cousin who was careless with money at twenty-two is still described that way at forty. A neighbour who once said something sharp is still the sharp neighbour. A brand that disappointed once stays the brand that disappoints. They are spoken of as fixed objects, when they have been replaced, piece by piece, many times over.

A name is only a handle. It is useful for as long as it points at something real. When it no longer does, it should be changed, quietly, without anyone needing to apologise.

Keeping the old verdict has a cost that is easy to miss, and the person who pays it is the one carrying it. Every evening spent defending an opinion of a place that no longer exists is an evening not spent finding out what it has become.