Brave

Inspirational song: Red Barchetta (Rush)

How does fear develop? Are we born with fear, or as we grow up and start cataloging how many things can kill us, is that where we start learning to approach the world with caution? My fears generally are less to do with being afraid of the external world, like plane crashes or criminals, and more with personal failures and loss of control. When last I was with my mother, reminiscing about the past over a couple of bottles of wine, it was revealed that as a very young girl, two or three years old, I was absolutely fearless on my tricycle. It was hinted that I was downright reckless. I only have the vaguest memories about that time, and while my mother remembers me flying hell bent for leather down the hills in our little corner of Fort Worth, my only memories of my tricycle are the time I finished that hill by going over the curb. I still have the visual of my front wheel hitting a manhole cover, and the handlebars of the trike disappearing under me as I went flying over them. I retained a fear of going off a curb on a bike for the rest of my life after that, even at slow speeds.

I still hadn't learned to live as a fearful child years later. When my family moved to Germany, and as a six year old I learned to ski, I thought it was terrific. I remember clearly grabbing the little plastic banana-shaped handle and getting tugged up the little kids' hill. I can still feel the heartache driving away from my first Austrian ski instructor, named Zepp (he wrote it in the snow when the tip of his ski pole), who I was just sure was my true love. I was the weird little girl who carried her rental skis in to the pro shop to get waxed for the slalom race at the end of the instruction week, even though I was destined to snowplow every turn on the whole way down. How is it now, with a tendency toward vertigo and tight muscles in my hips and low back, I positively inch down snowy slopes, and rarely set foot on anything bigger than a driveway in snow? Skiing has been relegated to my past, permanently. I definitely don't get myself in situations where I can fall great distances, unlike the top of that mountain in Austria, when I graduated from the bunny slope.

I can't decide whether I qualify as fearful or fearless. I'll march with my head held high into a neighborhood where I don't belong, or across a dark parking lot by myself. I get right up on top of those giant spiders with the painful bites, so that I can get good pictures, and I keep looking for the snakes I have been told live somewhere in or near my Park. I recognize danger, but I decide it won't touch me if I don't let it. But at the same time, I am utterly terrified of using the telephone, even just to make a doctor's appointment, and it's all I can do to ride in a car when I'm not the one behind the wheel. Sometimes I think I'm a worthless chicken, and sometimes I feel like Superwoman. If I get to choose, I am going to go with fearless, yet smart enough to be conscious of my limitations.