Phished

There are people in my life who believe I am starving in Africa. My ex-husband, bless his heart, even found the hotel where my double resides and tried to wire cash for the $1550 I owed for the nights I’d been staying there working for a program he believed in and believed me involved with: “Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education.” My daughter was filming in Baltimore and had not checked her voice mail, but when she checked it she said his voice was poignantly concerned. “Your mother is starving in Africa, wouldn’t you know it? And it would happen this month, my having just paid tuition at both your siblings’ colleges.”

I am wondering about those people who, like my ex-husband, do indeed believe I am starving in Africa. I suppose it’s not such a stretch to imagine, if I am capable of running out of money in Spoleto, I am likewise capable of running out of money in Africa and of being in Africa given the world looks awfully small when one spins a globe and sees the continent of North America looking so familiarly there, trailing South America, and then trace across the dotted line of latitude toward Europe and the landmass of Africa below and surmise from proximity and my own tendency to wander that I could practically step over the Strait of Gibraltar—at its narrowest point only eight miles wide. Even my father started getting phone calls: “Is Cindy in Africa?” These friends who did not have my alternative gmail address would call him to inquire and my sister claimed he was not the least concerned: “Well, I thought she was in Italy, but one never knows.”

I am trying to figure out which friends are the truest friends: Those who believe I am in Africa or those who read the message from my evil twin and knew right away that she was not I, either because they were already familiar with the scam or because they deduced from the voice of the message that the person writing could not possibly be me nor ethically could be me because I am not the sort to beg for even small sums of money, even from an ex-husband, even when desperate. Of course my closest friends had my gmail address and my phone number and wrote or called immediately to confirm, still there are gaps in communication always and I may never know how many now lost friends will persist through their lives believing I am starving, or even dead, in Africa.

For a moment, my truest friends seemed the very ones who do not know me, who simply heard my cry for help and did not even stop to think whether the message made sense or whether I was writing out of voice or character. Their generous response of wanting to send money regardless, wanting to ensure my well-being regardless of my state or whereabouts, seemed so genuinely loving that I fell into new philosophical quandary: Is it better to be loved or to be known? Or is the discrepancy entirely arbitrary? Isn’t love what helps us to be known and those souls so willing to save me from my erstwhile crisis in Africa possibly those who in the end truly know me, know at least what seeds of possibility lie not only within me but in the dark nights of all us who venture toward the edges of ourselves.

I suppose I should feel mostly rage over the violation: that some terrorist hacker has stolen my identity and perhaps the friendships of those whose only tether to my life was an address on my Yahoo contact list. I must say I am sad for the years’ worth of saved correspondence now lost in cyberspace; I doubt my evil twin has much use for old love letters. Even so, I woke up this morning deeply challenged in the right ways to recreate myself, as though the ablutions of the day before had been timely and meaningful, a sorting out of the chaff from the grain, the seeds from the lentils, a way of cleaning the slate and making fresh commitments. Shaman journeys come to mind: something about me is working for good in Africa. I step over some Strait of Gibraltar within myself and chase after her.