Read Online I Stand Corrected by Eden Collinsworth - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Eden Collinsworth
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still while curiosity overcame the gorillas’ wariness of us. Eventually, they approached separately. The younger males first, then several mothers with babies on their backs. All congregated within a few feet.
All but one.
In an unchallenged position on a fallen tree trunk a few yards away was the majestically massive silverback. His penetrating black eyes monitored our slightest twitch. In deference to him—demonstrating a concept that is the mainspring of Confucian belief—I bowed my head and cast my eyes to the ground. Deciding that I was of no consequence, he began to lumber off in the opposite direction. He stopped, turned around, and checked us one last time, presumably to make sure our eyes were still averted.
The hike down the mountain was followed by a cramped jeep ride to Lake Victoria. I was grateful to run on its beach. When I stopped to scan the shoreline, my focus gradually moved from the coast to the gleaming water, transparent down to the lake’s smooth, sandy bottom.
It was forbidden.
I knew that.
Hadn’t my brother given me the gruesome details? And the doctor … hadn’t he warned that African lakes were lethal?
Schistosomiasis was a veritable flash card for an unforgettably awful disease.
I am a reasonable person. And so I had a moment of reason, a moment of saying to myself,
Let’s not do this
.
I am a reasonable person. But if one takes away those moments of unreason, one has taken away a great many of life’s joys.
It might have been because I was on an endless beach without anyone in sight. Perhaps it was the rhythmic sound of lapping waves, or my overwhelming desire to float. Regardless of the reason, I knew exactly what I was doing as I stripped off my clothes and calmly walked into the lake. I submerged myself for as long as breath allowed, then propelled myself to the water’s surface and floated in something as close to nirvana as I will ever get.
To eliminate the evidence of my swim, I walked back to the tent at deliberate leisure so my hair was given its chance to dry. Along the way, I found a keepsake from Africa: a shell the moss-green color of its mountains.
By the time we checked into the hotel in Kilimanjaro, the idea of a warm bath had acquired a certain magnitude. Before easing myself into the tub, I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. Scratched arms and bruised legs testified to what I had put myself through, and a bleak diet had resulted in weight loss I couldn’t afford. What was left was a battered wreck.
CHAPTER EIGHT
W hen I returned from Africa, my mother told me I needed my head examined.
She was phoning from a mental institution.
“You should have known better,” she repeated after I admitted that the altitude sickness I suffered in Rwanda had mutated into pleurisy by the time I saw a doctor in New York.
My European mother was from a different era. She believed men should be managed in a way that prevented them from feeling anything other than taken care of. But she also expected them to assume a leadership role when the situation required. Apparently, this had been one of those times.
“What possessed your brother to allow you to climb an extinct volcano?” was the rhetorical question she posed before asking a personal one.
“Do you realize how difficult you’re becoming to marry off?”
Shengnu
, or “leftover woman,” is a term China’s Ministry of Education has added to its official lexicon. It describes an urban professional woman over the age of twenty-seven. For those slow in understanding the implications, the prefix
sheng
is the same as in the word
shengcai
, or “leftover food.”
Setting its own action-oriented time line that delineates exactly when women become stale, the Communist Party provides instruction by age groups. At twenty-five, women must“fight” and “hunt” for a partner. If not married by twenty-eight, women are pressured to “triumph against the odds.” Between thirty-one and thirty-four,
All but one.
In an unchallenged position on a fallen tree trunk a few yards away was the majestically massive silverback. His penetrating black eyes monitored our slightest twitch. In deference to him—demonstrating a concept that is the mainspring of Confucian belief—I bowed my head and cast my eyes to the ground. Deciding that I was of no consequence, he began to lumber off in the opposite direction. He stopped, turned around, and checked us one last time, presumably to make sure our eyes were still averted.
The hike down the mountain was followed by a cramped jeep ride to Lake Victoria. I was grateful to run on its beach. When I stopped to scan the shoreline, my focus gradually moved from the coast to the gleaming water, transparent down to the lake’s smooth, sandy bottom.
It was forbidden.
I knew that.
Hadn’t my brother given me the gruesome details? And the doctor … hadn’t he warned that African lakes were lethal?
Schistosomiasis was a veritable flash card for an unforgettably awful disease.
I am a reasonable person. And so I had a moment of reason, a moment of saying to myself,
Let’s not do this
.
I am a reasonable person. But if one takes away those moments of unreason, one has taken away a great many of life’s joys.
It might have been because I was on an endless beach without anyone in sight. Perhaps it was the rhythmic sound of lapping waves, or my overwhelming desire to float. Regardless of the reason, I knew exactly what I was doing as I stripped off my clothes and calmly walked into the lake. I submerged myself for as long as breath allowed, then propelled myself to the water’s surface and floated in something as close to nirvana as I will ever get.
To eliminate the evidence of my swim, I walked back to the tent at deliberate leisure so my hair was given its chance to dry. Along the way, I found a keepsake from Africa: a shell the moss-green color of its mountains.
By the time we checked into the hotel in Kilimanjaro, the idea of a warm bath had acquired a certain magnitude. Before easing myself into the tub, I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. Scratched arms and bruised legs testified to what I had put myself through, and a bleak diet had resulted in weight loss I couldn’t afford. What was left was a battered wreck.
CHAPTER EIGHT
W hen I returned from Africa, my mother told me I needed my head examined.
She was phoning from a mental institution.
“You should have known better,” she repeated after I admitted that the altitude sickness I suffered in Rwanda had mutated into pleurisy by the time I saw a doctor in New York.
My European mother was from a different era. She believed men should be managed in a way that prevented them from feeling anything other than taken care of. But she also expected them to assume a leadership role when the situation required. Apparently, this had been one of those times.
“What possessed your brother to allow you to climb an extinct volcano?” was the rhetorical question she posed before asking a personal one.
“Do you realize how difficult you’re becoming to marry off?”
Shengnu
, or “leftover woman,” is a term China’s Ministry of Education has added to its official lexicon. It describes an urban professional woman over the age of twenty-seven. For those slow in understanding the implications, the prefix
sheng
is the same as in the word
shengcai
, or “leftover food.”
Setting its own action-oriented time line that delineates exactly when women become stale, the Communist Party provides instruction by age groups. At twenty-five, women must“fight” and “hunt” for a partner. If not married by twenty-eight, women are pressured to “triumph against the odds.” Between thirty-one and thirty-four,
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