The (mis)adventures of Super-S

I’ve recently started reading a new blog called The Milkman’s Daughter, where I read this entry from which I have taken the title of this post. That one line sent me on a contemplative journey down memory lane, because I think that though I moved away from there ten years ago, and last visited 6 years ago (has it really been that long?), I left my most strongly-planted roots in the deserts of Kuwait.

Just yesterday somebody asked me if I ever played sports in school. We were talking about how we were chubby kids. For me, this resulted in a hatred of team sports because I was generally the kid picked last.

This dislike of team sports lasted until I moved to Kuwait in 1992, aged 12, and decided it was time to make a change. I’m not sure what sort of adolescent makes such a strong decision, but I decided to let go of my oftentimes debilitating shyness and become a new person. Kuwait changed my life for the good in so many ways. Lots of Egyptians and other non-Gulf Arabs hate Kuwait, Kuwaitis, and what it represents (soulless oil wealth, I guess), but I still have a hard time seeing that country, that place, objectively because it was the site of so many of my happiest days. It is where I discovered the best (and worst) of myself and of people. It is where I “fell in love” for the first time. It is where I, for the first time in my life, made real friends, people whom I still consider among my closest friends today. And it is where, eventually, I got over my hatred of sports and joined the basketball, volleyball, and track&field teams.

Lately, the weather in Belfast has been gorgeous – the sun has been bright and warm, the trees and grass smell sweet, and the blooms are, well, blooming, and it all reminds me of what I missed while in Cairo and what I loved when in Kuwait – spring. Granted, Kuwait only had about two weeks of what could be called spring, but it was the most beautiful time of year I’ve experienced anywhere. If rain ever fell there it happened in January/February, and by March, if you went out into the desert at just the right time, you could see tiny pink and purple flowers sprouting from the earth which would, in two weeks time, be cracked and parched under the blistering sun. But, man, those two weeks of spring were beyond beautiful.

I would say that one of my best, and certainly most unforgettable, moments was on one such spring day. It was probably 1995 or 1996 and I was at school laying on the high jump mats with my two closest friends at the time – Mini (still the closest of friends) and Goldie (we lost contact after she moved back to Texas, though now, through the magic of facebook, are back in touch!) – during lunch time. It had been a weird winter for all of us. Mini and I had fallen out with the rest of our “group” – Sambagirl, Cheddar and L. – because, I dunno, we weren’t cool enough. Goldie had just found out that she was moving back to Texas after having lived in Kuwait for six years. So there we were, at lunchtime, on the mats, each one lost in her own thoughts and listening to music – I was listening to Jimmy Buffet’s “Lone Palm” – as the sun shone on our faces and a sweet-smelling breeze blew over us. And I knew then, or maybe I just decided, that it was a moment I would never forget.

Like I said, it’s been a long time since I’ve been back there, and I don’t know if I ever will go back, but I don’t think I’ll ever shake that place or who I became when I lived there.