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Wanderlust
Sexual charades in Seoul
To save face, I had to pretend to rape my Korean girlfriend, and she had to pretend to resist.
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[11/19/99]

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[11/18/99]

Travel Advocate
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"That vacation club didn't deliver what I thought I was getting!"
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[11/18/99]

The loneliest man in China
In a nondescript rural restaurant, an expat is humbled by a local's worldly honesty.
By Paolo Bacigalupi
[11/17/99]

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I am plastered to hardness, my face to burning hot boulder face, my booted toes jammed in cracks, my fingertips poking blindly in search of a hold. Splayed on the rock wall, I'm not as terrified as I imagined I'd be; I'm more frustrated. I scrambled partway up out of bravado, and now I'm stuck like a bug about to be smashed. My clothes reek sourly in the heat, as if I hadn't washed for months, not just a few days. Clinging to the side of the cliff, my armpits close to my nose, I smell anxiety as well as sweat. I can't figure out a way to go up another step.

From below, Dana, our instructor, calls up, "Try that little crack to the right. Can you get your toe wedged in over there?"

I see the crack; it's big enough to stuff with a thin notebook, not a boot toe. My upper arms don't have enough strength to haul my weight over in that direction. They feel like Jell-O. I mutter something despairing. I'm hot. My knees are battered, and the toenails of my big toes are turning black -- I can feel them. I am angry and hot and sweating. I don't like heights. But I am not afraid of that, strangely enough. After all, I'm staring at a rock face, not measuring the length of a fall. And even if I did fall, I'd be OK; I am harnessed and belayed. I can feel the harness cutting into my crotch. No, I'm not afraid of falling. I'm afraid of my weakness. Of letting myself down. Letting Outward Bound down. Being the one who will not be able to do this terrible thing, make this climb.

Dana keeps on calling up calm advice. This crack. Or that one. Don't think too much. Trust and go. She has all the time in the world. But red-haired, emotional Sarah, anchoring me with blistering hands, suddenly shouts, "Trust your body, Barbara. Trust it."

Does anyone who's been abused trust her body? Or anyone else's? Or anyone? Much less anyone to hold her in belay, to hold her on the side of a cliff?

The Outward Bound catalog called it simply a women's course in desert backpacking at Joshua Tree National Park, in the Mojave Desert outside Palm Springs, Calif. A week in the high desert at wildflower time, a week learning outdoor skills, living simply, sleeping under the stars. Rappelling was mentioned, I recall, and rock climbing. I passed mentally over those words in favor of "stark yet beautiful landscape." I knew it would be hard, but then, I wanted it to be hard: a pilgrimage in search of something I didn't understand.

A pilgrimage with other women who also wanted and didn't want it to be hard.

The five of us flew in from far away; those from the East Coast left icy temperatures. They imagined balmy desert nights, sunny days to work on tans. We plaster ourselves with sunscreen during the day and wear sunglasses and hats. It is the high desert at the end of winter, bright with thin, cold air. We wear our thermal underwear almost all the time, and at night we put on layers and more layers, all we have, and get into our sleeping bags during dinner. In the morning there is ice on our bags. And a brightness that is almost too much to bear.

Nilda came from the Philippines as a young woman to marry a man she met in an ad. She is small and tough, upset with the others for using such vulgar language ("Fuck!" Andi screams while rock climbing. "Fuck fuck fuck!" So it rings out over the desert). She does yoga and is flexible; she looks like a snail with her huge black pack weighing her down. She chose an all-women's trip because "Men always think they know everything. Men always try to tell you what to do." She never speaks of her husband, who seems to be wealthy and retired, with any affection.

Sarah is married too, to a dentist in New York. She has two boys. She is close to my age but in much better shape. She says she exercises for hours every day to blow off steam, to get rid of her excess energy. She came on this women's trip because she was afraid that if there were men, she would fall in love. She tells us with a laugh, "I know myself. I'd be obsessed with being beautiful and attracting some young stud. My father died when I was 10 and I've been falling in love ever since. I know myself. I don't need that." Sarah is the only one of us to try to keep up some semblance of attractiveness, which gets harder with each passing day. She puts on mascara every morning. She folds her bandanna in new ways; she wears her hat at a jaunty angle.

Andi wants to be the clown. Later she admits it's only nervousness that makes her crack constant jokes. She is the youngest and the slowest. "Pokey," her family called her. When everyone else has her pack on, Andi is still desperately looking for her toothbrush. She is strong and eager, the youngest, the chattiest. She signed up because she realized she had no friends who wanted to do the physical things that interested her.

Chandra wants transformation. She ended a long-term relationship not because she fell in love with someone else, but because she was yearning for something more. She has trained mightily for this trek to the desert, but physical challenge is not of great interest to her. When she climbs the cliff, she goes straight up, but she doesn't care to do it again. She came not to prove anything about her strength or agility but to discover more of who she is and might be. She has no patience when Andi and Sarah start talking about fashion and beauty. She wants to hit them. She has often wanted to fit in and "be nice" in her life, but she can sometimes be rude to the others. She is the first to go to bed after dinner. I know from the beginning that she will be my friend on the trip, though we don't talk much until the third or fourth day.

I don't understand entirely why I'm here. I have signed up for an Outward Bound women's trip when I could have spent the same money to live in luxury in Palm Springs for a week. I am the oldest and the least fit. I have trained for this trek by losing weight, walking 5 miles a day with a pack. By the time I left home, my pack weighed 20 pounds. I knew I wasn't prepared, but then, nothing could have prepared me. Everything that I fear and everything that is strong in me is here for me to look at and deal with.

Next page | Two stories I tell myself about my body