Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Longing for Kickball

Today a beautiful sunset welcomed us as we walked out of the chow hall. A big orange ball hung in the distance. It was the first time the sky has felt so close in Kuwait. Normally we have gray skies that look like nobody will ever touch. Except that sun touched us, and it was perhaps the first time it’s felt so harmless. Tired and going to rest. Not blazing down on us like an oven’s flame.

(This picture doesn't do it justice for how close this sun looked)

Once the night came upon us, we went out and played kickball. We grabbed some sandbags and plotted our bases. This is the first time in a while I can remember going out and playing group sports several nights in a row. The other day it was volleyball, yesterday basketball and a bit of football, and today the old school kick-ball. Man is that game fun. I love charging that ball rolling toward home, skipping and hopping over pebbles and rocks as it comes to you… and you just whack it with your foot. There’s not many other little pleasures that are as satisfying as that.

And I feel this new energy come up in me when we play these sports. It’s not just the joy of being a kid again. It’s aggressiveness. These claws grip onto my chest and my eyes turn to fire, and my voice just gets… loud. I become like troop leader in the battlefield. It’s like a force.
The last time I remember becoming this aggressive was on a role-play convoy out on Fort Dix.

It was mainly just the NCO’s (non commissioned officers) riding in the trucks while the officers and the first sergeant set up an ambush on us. I was the driver of the third vehicle, and as soon as I saw them coming out with towels wrapped on their heads and black shirts on those same claws clenched my chest and my voice—man my voice… I was screaming. “LET’S GET THEM! MOW THEM DOWN!” I handed Lopez my weapon and ammo, told her to get up on the turret and unleash every single round on them. I didn’t want the magazines back unless they were empty.

Later, after our kickball game I got to thinking when was the last time I played the sport. Must have been around 13 or 14, I thought. Five or six years ago. No that’s wrong. Six or seven years ago… not that still wasn’t right. How old am I? Twenty-two? Twenty-three? Man.. I’m twenty three years old already. I still remember the feeling of being thirteen and that was… man, ten whopping years ago. I haven’t played kickball in ten years, and here we were—in Kuwait—at it again.

There was some joy to that. I talked to Spc. Javi about that, and he said how he used to play basketball all the time.

“I used to have some moves, you know?” he said with his Equadorian accent. “Now, no more.”

“Yeah but you’re still whooping,” I told him. And it was true. For a thirty-plus-year-old man he had dominated that game of ball yesterday. “You’re at least twice, no, three times as good as I played.”

“Yeh, but I used to be better.”

He looked sad for that long stretch of seconds. And I realize that’s how we tend to look at the past. With such longing. Such sadness. But if ten years from now I’ll look back on today and feel longing, then how will I fear ten years after that? That means our life is only getting better. We’re never going to reach a point in life without longing for a few years earlier. Even when we’re eighty we’ll look back at seventy. That mean’s seventy ain’t half bad. That means 23 is pretty darn good, and we can find only more to long for in the future.

2 comments:

~*Mrs. Heather Sauret*~ said...

You're so cute! I'm glad you guys are able to find time to have fun and be together. I miss you tons, wish I could be out there playing kick ball with you.

xoxoxo kisses

Providence Pal said...

You really bust me up! I enjoy reading your stuff!

Always in Our Prayers.