Inside My Room

This is my room. This is where I've been hiding out for the past two years. Before this I hid in a different room (not pictured). Now that it is time to pack it up I realize just how much I'm going to miss it. I'll make a new hiding spot. Sure. But this one was special.


While living here I discovered Neil Gaiman novels and ordained him my new favorite author.


While living here I conquered the Friday Market, Kuwait's haggling megadome. I bought that rug on the floor for KD13 ($45). Trish Harris and I chipped down the price from KD20.


My friend Zahra asked "What's an Appa?" when she sat on our little couch one day and I introduced her to Avatar: The Last Airbender.



The orange scarf hanging under the cowboy hat was a gift from Silvia and Nino after sharing salmon, wine and chocolates in her tiny Paris flat.

Optimus Prime, who stands resolute on the corner of our IKEA bookshelf made surprise appearances in all sorts of places around our place. One day he'd remind me to take my probiotics or stand in my dresser drawer holding his suggestion of which panties I should wear for the day.

My art easel was remained, "Arch Weasel" when I told my husband I was giving it to Yusra and the static-ridden phone lines in Kuwait distorted my words.

We were living here when we decided to become helicopter pilots and move to Arizona. In the evenings after work we'd stretch out on the bed and talk about flying, listening to The Eagles of Death Metal.

We had celebratory bootlegged date rum cocktails when we paid off the last of our debt. Four years in Kuwait and we were able to accomplish what would have taken twenty in the US.

On my laptop in this room we sat scanning our 100-page mortgage document, trying to email our lending company during the Great Internet Outage of 2008.



In this room we planned our trip to Jordan to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary where we would spend six hours on The King's Highway from Jerash to Petra where we encountered jinn and reminisced on the mistakes and triumphs of our twenties.


I spent hours, a few moments at a time, perched on this balcony, thinking about what to do next.



It's all boxed up now. I'm quiet, but smiling.