As she rounded a bend in the river, Tendai caught sight of a figure in the distance. It was an old man, dressed in a traditional Shona loincloth, his hair gray and wild. He beckoned her over, and Tendai felt a shiver run down her spine.
I sat with that for a long time. The stone was cold in my hand, but the cold was honest. It did not pretend to be warm. Seventeen days into marriage, I was still learning that honesty—real, unvarnished, this-is-who-I-am honesty—is the only thing that holds. Promises crack. Vows, for all their beauty, are just words spoken in good weather. But a cold stone in your palm on a dark night, given by a man who says, We will be changed and I will stay —that is something else. realwifestories shona river night walk 17 better
She had come to the old riverside path because memories had been crowded at the edges of her days lately, uninvited and insistent. Walking calmed those edges. Tonight the river walked with her. As she rounded a bend in the river,
The Shona River at night is a different creature than its daylight self. By afternoon, it is a cheerful thing, skipping over rocks and flashing minnow-bellies. But at night, under a sky bruised with the last remnants of sunset and the first puncture wounds of stars, the river becomes a storyteller. It speaks in low vowels, in the drag of current over submerged logs, in the soft shush of water bending around a bend it has bent around for ten thousand years. I sat with that for a long time
Put down the phone, step outside, and see what the world looks like when everyone else is asleep.