This is not a recipe for disaster. Or it might be. Depends on the things you are afraid of.
It also won’t be like making cookies. It isn’t a bunch of things that will turn into something delicious and solid. It’s taking what you think and thinking something else. It’s turning your fear into motivation, with caution.
Remember when you were 2? You don’t? Remember when you first touched the hot pan? Maybe that wasn’t 2, but remember when you didn’t know the danger lurking over head, just out of arms reach? You didn’t know it would be hot. You were told. “Don’t touch that!! It’s hot! It will burn you.”It maybe didn’t feel scary. Should you feel afraid of the things you are uncertain of? So you touch it. It’s hot. Now you know. This is the beginning of a lifetime of fears. A lifetime of potential near misses, burns, scrapes, falls, a lot of cautions. Places and things just out of our reach. Places and things that upon first glance are to be feared. Until we can learn to approach them with caution.
Heights. Way up there? Or for some way down there? It’s not the fear of going up it’s the fear of already being up and going down. So we stay away from the edge. We walk carefully. We tie good knots to keep us tied in, we don’t fall. My daughter said it once to me, “I’m not afraid of the monkey bars because I just won’t fall off.” I use this when I look down. And out from edges I’m not going to get close to. Land is always falling into the water into the abyss of the down places. So I stay back. Do I keep from being up? Not if I stay back. I’m just more cautious. Still afraid.
Deep water. It’s deep. You can’t see the bottom. It’s very unknown. More than space even. You can see stars and the moon and a few planets on a clear night. But on a clear night in water you can see the reflection of the stars and the moon and the planets, not the bottom. During the day the water plays with the light and creates untrusting images of depth. So I like to just jump right in. I learned to swim. At the age of 36. Before that, I was too afraid. I liked water but I liked to stay on top of it. Safely. I was too afraid.
Those are two of my bigger fears. The ones that you couldn’t guess specifically because I’m always up, down or under. I wish it was as simple as take one cup of this and a dash of that and mix it. Then place it in the oven for baby and me. But it’s as simple as I change what I’m thinking. I change it just enough I go anyway, do anyway, and somehow live anyway. I have a lot of very strict rules on myself. I know there are a lot in the world, but in the end I’m the one who should be making mine. I did have to learn to swim first. I had to learn to keep me secure at heights in trees, I had to learn to want to look down and out. But I also had to learn the stove was hot. It was hot because even though I was warned I just had to know. Because I couldn’t see myself.
I fear the ocean. It’s too big. I know this means I’ve been teaching myself all these years to get to it. To me it means it needs examined closer. How deep is it? I suppose we should find out. How big? I would fall on love with it. I am certain it would be difficult to bring me up from the down once I am taught how to stay calm enough to breath through gear to go below. I’m not sure it’s possible yet. I struggle to put anything over my mouth, nose and face. It’s a bit suffocating. Right now they want us afraid of our air we breath in and out and at suggesting we wear face coverings. I struggle with this. It panics me. I feel more comfortable with my air going into air and back into my body. Like it should. I struggle with this process as it is, I don’t need an added layer. I’m not there yet.
I am so packed full of fear it’s both a shock I do anything and a shock I do everything. I rode my first roller coaster last year. I was 41. I didn’t go as a child. I went to the park they were in once and saw them. I knew someday I would need to. I missed a chance to go with my high school class as I skipped school one day to just not be in school. I knew the consequences and did it anyway. I didn’t want to go on this trip. I waited until I was ready then payed for a ticket and went. I went with a girl I work with who is so afraid of everything too. We got there and I said “ok, which is the worst?”Or is it the best?. We started with that one. I screamed so hard I thought I would just die of screaming. I held on so tight. What the hell was i holding on for? Holding on won’t secure me. Will it? If this thing goes catapulting into space off its track, holding on will not save me. Nothing will. Each roller coaster I tested letting go. One arm at a time. Then occasionally no arms, then all arms back on, eyes open? Sometimes. I wanted to see though. So I started to watch the cars cruise through the tunnels and turns. It was fascinating. Who inspects these? When and how often? What if the inspector that day had just lost his wife and was so sad. He didn’t count critical welds and bolts as well that day? Who can I ask? The teenager who is running the show? The information desk? After about 10 rides I decided to just go with it. If I was going to die I was going to die screaming of fear which was also no fear.
Once someone asked me “what did I think people would say at my funeral?” I have friends who love chats like this. Isaid. “What the hell was she doing up there?”
I’m not less afraid. I’m more brave. I use the caution to keep me safe. All my rules plus the ones provided to make the leap into the deep end. It makes fear feel more like cautious to me. Not not afraid. Simply because I’ve wired myself to believe this. I’m wirable.
I write about fear today because I feel too afraid to write about fear today. I watered my plants for the first time since he died. The last time I watered he was almost gone. As I’m watering I’m thinking of what to say about my dad. To help write his story. Tears were pouring all over my plants. Soaking them with my sadness. How do you sum up the total of a person so unsummable. He can’t be wrapped up in a simple story. He wasn’t a simple person. It had to be unique. It then felt like it didn’t need to be done anyway. Anyone that knew him knew these things, anyone who didn’t would wish they did. Why do we do this to people? Tempt them with stories of people they could never meet? I don’t want to write about him for others.
So we wrote about him for us. His story told by us as if he wrote it himself. This is what happens if you don’t do it yourself. Write your story or someone else will. My dad wrote it for us to tell. It got less scary as us girls worked out all our nervous energy and cleaned and gardened. Then we sat with our wine and told his story. It was a good one.
Aspenleaf 