Sahara

Africa’s a terrible place, dangerous, screwed up. You should never go there. I already knew she thought that. My mom’s the type of person whose opinions you know. She thinks people who run red lights should be shot. She enjoys British sitcoms and thinks American ones contain too much sex. She still favors tapered jeans and says wide-leg make you look like a ragamuffin. She believes it’s lazy not to speak at least one foreign language. And she hates Africa. The good thing about people with strong opinions is that you always know where you stand with them. The bad thing is that they shut out too many interesting voices. They may speak the truth, but less frequently do they hear it from anyone else.

I’d like to go to Africa. That’s one of the truths about me. I probably shouldn’t tell her that. If I did go, I’d have to delay telling her until I’d been back for a week. Or I might just say I’d gone to Nice or Mykonos, destinations she could get behind. I’m not all that happy about this. It would be great if I could call her and say, “Hey, did you hear that piece on NPR the other day? The interview with one of the runners who crossed the Sahara? Isn’t that amazing?”

But she wouldn’t get my fascination, wouldn’t be tempted out of a comfortable lifestyle by the idea of a 4,000-mile run – 100 days, 6 countries. Wouldn’t want to hear about how this sounds to me like one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard (disregarding practicality, of course). Sounds bloody miserable, is what she would say. And dangerous. I bet none of those runners’ mothers wanted to see them cross the Sahara. That they went anyway probably wasn’t a direct defiance, it was simply a choice between voices.