Photo: Robert E. Rutledge
Read: Fucking Fabulous #3: Talking to the Trees
I have never ridden a rollercoaster. And I never will. My heart would never survive.
“You’ve fought and survived what the Egyptian regime did to you and you’re scared of a rollercoaster?” I am often asked.
You fucking bet, I am. There is thunder in my heart, to quote Kate Bush, yes. Its rumble is a chorus of risk and recklessness, yes. But the thunder of rollercoasters is not a language I understand.
I understand fascists and authoritarians. I know what they can do to me. I can hold up my arms and tell you what they did to them. And I might concede a certain ironic poetry in the breaking of a writer’s arms, as the riot police did to me. And I can tell you how the riot police who broke my arms also sexually assaulted me, because what’s the quickest way to signal to a woman power and control? And I can add all that trauma up to consequence. Risk plus recklessness equal consequence. Fighting fascists and authoritarians comes with consequence. And that fight is a risk I chose to take, feet firmly planted on the ground, thunder in my heart as per Kate. And the decision to stay on the frontline of the protest as the armed riot police ran towards us could be called reckless, yes, because doesn’t freedom require a reckless abandon to imagination?
But what’s the fucking point of a rollercoaster? I need my feet on the ground when I risk my life.
There is thunder in my heart, to quote Kate Bush, yes. Its rumble is a chorus of risk and recklessness, yes.
A few days before I turned 59, a ring I hadn’t worn in decades called to me from the jumble of jewelry I keep on my dresser. It is one of only two pieces of jewelry a man has ever gifted me but it’s the only one I’ve kept. The other one was the engagement ring from my ex-husband. I’ve forgotten what I did with that, much as I often forget that I was married for two years.
My thirtieth birthday was the occasion of the ring I still have. I polished it, put it on again, and listened to what it had to say to me of risk and recklessness; of what I truly fear, besides rollercoasters.
I chose him–the gifter of the ring I still have. I asked him out. He was five years younger than me, which felt like a massive gap at the time but one which continued to grow between future lovers and me. Another time, ask me why it’s different when a woman is older than a man in hetersexual relationships. I am neither heterosexual nor about to delve further into age gaps. Another time.
Risk and recklessness are currencies I am familiar with.
The ring I still have is silver with four words written across it in gold Arabic calligraphy ”Love. Affection. Devotion. Confidence.”
He asked me to marry him twice. I said yes and two weeks later took it back, twice. A lot happened in between those yeses and noes but that’s the stuff of a memoir and I want to focus on risk and recklessness and why I will never ride a rollercoaster.
I chose a job over him, in between those yeses and noes in one of the biggest personal and political risks (and some would argue case of recklessness) of my life. I was a Reuters News Agency correspondent in Cairo at the time and I applied for and got a job in the Jerusalem bureau soon after I turned 30. It caused a major rupture in our relationship and put me in even deeper trouble with the Egyptian regime, which was already tapping my phone and having me followed because of my news reporting.
When I resigned from that Reuters job two years later, it cemented for me the certainty that much as I did not want a husband, I did not want a boss and I have been self employed ever since 1999, with a two-year exception from 2002-2004, much like my two year exception of a marriage from 2000-2002. Bosses and husbands are forms of risks and recklessness I have gambled on, not to my favour. The House and the Office always win.
Perusing the risks I’ve never taken and those that I never will is a fucking fabulous perk of this decade. The gift of reckoning with oneself, of asking “Was I fair to myself? Have I denied myself anything that I now regret? Was it fear? Am I not brave?”
Risk and recklessness are currencies I am familiar with: two sides of a coin that I have tossed frequently in my life and which I’ve counted frequently during this decade of my fifties.
I muse on risks, not roads, not taken.
Why not that risk? Not because I rue missed opportunities. Nor because of the weight of how much time is left ahead compared to what I’ve burned through.
Perusing the risks I’ve never taken and those that I never will is a fucking fabulous perk of this decade. The gift of reckoning with oneself, of asking “Was I fair to myself? Have I denied myself anything that I now regret? Was it fear? Am I not brave?”
And so I think of rollercoasters. I think of risk and recklessness. And I interrogate myself:
And here, in my final year of the fifties, I find reminders of risk and recklessness; roads taken and roundabouts that wasted my time and routes and reroutes I have determined to explore.
The biggest risk I have chosen and will continue to gamble on is to be free. My heart needs it. The recklessness that often requires is a price I save up for and happily spend. And not on a ticket for a rollercoaster.
Thank you for reading my essay. You can support my work by:
Hitting the heart button so that others can be intrigued and read
Upgrading to a paid subscription to support FEMINIST GIANT
Opting for a one-time payment via buying me a coffee
Sharing this post by email or on social media
Mona Eltahawy is a feminist author, commentator and disruptor of patriarchy. Her books have been translated into 13 languages so far. Her new book Feminism vs Fascism: Ten Tactics to Topple Tyrants is forthcoming February 23, 2027 via Mariner Books. Her latest book is an anthology on menopause she edited called Bloody Hell!: Adventures in Menopause from Around the World. Her first book Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (2015) targeted patriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa and her second The Seven Necessary Sins For Women and Girls (2019) took her disruption worldwide. It is now available in Ireland and the UK. Her commentary has appeared in media around the world and she makes video essays and writes a newsletter as FEMINIST GIANT.
I appreciate your support. If you like this piece and you want to further support my writing, you can like/comment below, forward this article to others, or send a gift subscription to someone else today.