The Scary Things

I dream that a little girl who lives next door to me tells me she is angry at me because I have cancer, and she is only eight, and shouldn’t have to be afraid of such things.

My heart melts for her, but my response is firm, if kind.

“I know it is scary, that you are mad I introduced a scary thing into your thoughts. But kids all over this world have to face scary things. And I have faith that you can too. And if you can stand up with your fear, you and I can be good friends on the other side, and have lots of fun together.”

She cries with regret, relief, at the earthshaking call to maturity, and because of my faith in her. I hold and rock her while she lets it all out.

I wake and make a list of the hierarchy of dangers that surround me:

Global climate breakdown, international threat of nuclear war. The destruction of a precarious democracy and civil rights by white right-wing extremists. Massive wildfires thirty miles before and behind me that fill the air with thick smoke and have already driven people I know from their homes. Extreme drought and at least ten more days forecast ahead of high winds and dire fire conditions, spreading current fires and igniting new starts which may threaten my home and the lives of my family. A continuing pandemic that has left my children struggling with post-viral symptoms, that could absolutely dangerously mess up my immunocompromised system if I become infected. Living with older teens and young adults driving cars at night. The continuous threat that any lingering cancer cells cells in my body, still sleepy and quiet at my last labs, could rise up again (or have already started to rouse themselves) fling themselves into active rebellion and start wrecking the joint.

The collective dissociation and avoidant obliviousness of the community around me to almost all of these dangers, which compounds them all.

Some days I spend being very very brave, and my dreams remind me that I am afraid in case I forgot. Other days I am very scared and my dreams remind me how to be brave.

I am often afraid. I should be. It is necessary. And I get mad about being afraid sometimes, and sometimes when I tell others about the dangers I live with they have to examine their own realities and it makes them mad and afraid too. Sometimes they don’t want to think about it at all. They feel too little to metabolize fears so big.

But the only way to really be free of these fears is to avoid reality itself.

Healthy people feel healthy fear.

But fear is high-voltage juice, and it is so hard to calibrate it’s charge to optimal. We need enough. But not too much. Not more than we can ground or use.

Everyday people talk to me believing that if they were healthier, wiser, more developed, more faithful they would not be afraid. I am grateful that my fear reminds me every single day that I am not yet wise.

We need our fear, but we also need many tools and skills to train us to withstand and use it in its healthy portions, and to manage the charge when it is too little or too much.

I wrestle with fear every day, without exception. And everyday I am challenged to have compassion for myself when I negotiate states when I am too fearless or too fearful. Calibration is a fluid and unfolding process. Fear doesn’t let us just fix the meter and leave it at that. And although it is a great deal of work, I am usually able to stack up a good handful of hours in any given day where I am prudent but not terrorized, aware but not panicked, accepting but not passive. The sweet spot.

I use all the maneuvers that time and experience have granted me:

My first moves are chant, prayer, meditation, CBD, managed caffeine intake, a generally plant-based diet, daily exercise, long walks in nature, a glass of wine, losing myself in a book or writing in my journal. I have taken medication in the past - the long year of crisis and bereavement work after Sept 11th - and would again if something shifts and unhealthy fear is once again regularly able to pin me to the mat.

When I am sitting or walking in contemplation sometimes I just ask (I don’t know who or what I ask): I ask for help understanding what part of this fear is necessary, helpful for me. I ask to keep the useful, healthy parts of my fear close, and I ask for help in making proper use of it. I ask for all the excess fear, all that is too much for me, that flips my fuses or shorts out my circuits - to be returned back to the collective grid. I think about all the people who have rejected their fair portion, and ask that they be made strong enough to accept their healthy share. I ask that my excess fear be redistributed, offered up to anything or anyone that can make good use of it. I picture the fear that doesn’t properly belong to me draining out of the soles of my feet into the earth - to be transformed into energies that will heal and generate good in the wider world.

And the final move: that one that puts me on top for a time: I remember the strength of millions of people past and present who face greater dangers and need to summon greater courage than will ever be asked of me. I feel them all behind and along side me.

I then recall the work in front of me: To stand alongside all those who are more vulnerable than I am, who are more afraid, who have fewer privileges and tools to help them tame their fears. Who feel littler than me even. And I remind them, and myself at once, that if we can face our fears together, whatever the outcome, that we will have a chance to be best of friends and have lots of fun together on the other side of the earthshaking call to maturity.