I seemed to have lived a life. It's not one I would wish upon anyone else, but it seems, it does seem as if I have lived a life.
Let me introduce it, for now, through my basketball resume.
Don't worry, I'm not going to regale you with stories of my on court conquests. By many measures I was amazing, and by a million more measures, I was an abject failure. Same as anybody else I suppose. And I suspect those basketball moments, that each subsequent day become more dear to me as I get older and more incapable, are really only interesting to me. So I'll spare you. For now, at least. It's not as if I played professionally, anyway.
No, but this post is still about my basketball resume. Specifically, it's about the people I've managed to meet, to impress, to embarrass, and to be embarrassed by. Though I've never played with or against anybody that played in the NBA, my resume, I think, is quite remarkable.
To give you some context, I've spread out my 31 years now in 4 countries and, for a very brief time, an immigrant detention center which might as well as count as 45 mini countries. And this number of countries is only going to increase because as a friend recently referred to me, I am now a man without a country.
As a man without a country, it occurred to me that I have stories. For example, I recently found myself wandering about looking for a game here on this sparsely populated, mountain and jungle covered island: the Commonwealth of Dominica. Near a basketball court that some kids were misusing for cricket, I struck up a conversation with a middle aged man about hoops. They're very friendly here and it turned out, this friendly middle aged man had played for Dominica's national team some years ago. Very interesting. He was only 5'7 so he must've been pretty good. Curious. The next day, I joined his team and no, he wasn't bad, but not quite Spud Webb either. It was fun, anyway. Afterwards, we all regaled/bored each other with our ancient basketball conquests, which is probably why you're being spared now.
And then as it got dark and I walked back, I looked around at the mountain behind me, the Caribbean to the right, and a magnificent array of stars lighting up all the space in between. Somehow I was in Dominica. Two years ago, I didn't even know what Dominica was. Dominica, whose entire population you could easily fit in the Georgia Dome. Dominica, where they had high speed internet even in the remote and mountainous interior, but where they somehow didn't always have interior plumbing. What in the world was I doing in Dominica? Apparently, I was hooping with a former member of the national team.
I realized it then. No, I don't know what I'm doing. But I also realized one thing I had done. Somehow, I had now played basketball with somebody from the national team for every country I'd lived in.
And no, it's not much. But it does give me a way to frame my stories for now. And I do have a need to tell these stories. Part of my own futile plan to convince the universe that I'm worth holding on to.
So just hear me out, universe, for it seems, it really does seem as if I've lived a life.
...
fin, part 1.
- Fahd
