Cobra-versary

Some of you know that a long time ago I was bitten by a cobra while traveling in Southern Africa. Prior to that, I had an extreme and at times debilitating phobia of snakes. I would even dream about them wrapping around my ankles. In hindsight, I believe that some part of me knew I was bound for this serpentine communion. I’d been drawn like a magnet to the place where I met the snake — It even felt holy. There, my biggest fear (aside from Death Etc.) came true – not only did I almost step on a giant COBRA, but I was bitten by it! Far from home, far from any medical care, with a sock tied around my thigh like a tourniquet, and an unbearable numbing sensation spreading from the center of my tongue. Crazy.

I realized recently that this is exactly the time of year it happened. Early July. The word “cobra-versary” popped into my head, and I laughed. But back then it was no laughing matter, and I didn’t know I would live to tell the story. I had a rock from the place gripped in my hand, and I knew I could possibly die. I won’t say that I experienced any grand epiphanies in those hours, more like a surrender to letting other people figure out what to do. But weeks later, when my wounds had healed and the fang marks were no longer black, I realized: the paralyzing fear was gone. I no longer had a phobia of snakes! Sure, I still have a healthy trepidation, and never again will I traipse around Africa in sandals, but something had changed.

It seems paradoxical — wouldn’t I have more fear? — but no. The bite/venom seemed to function as a sort of inoculation. I had experienced the thing, and I had survived. A long time has now passed since I was bitten, and the story continues to change in my own mind. I veer between thinking I was an appropriating idiot, a naive snake-trodder, or – more kindly – the center of my own myth, striding bare-legged between mountains, drawn to the oldest, scariest place in myself that I could find.

P.s. it was a Mozambique Spitting Cobra, and yes, my family did name a hot sauce after the incident.