So as I mentioned, we’re starting to count down to our Nova Scotia vacation this summer. We’ve got a beautiful seaside cottage booked that has all the amenities I could possibly want or need, save for one: the bed doesn’t have any seatbelts or restraining straps. Not for the toddler, which will be a separate challenge, but for me.
You see, I have this deep and primal fear of wide open spaces and deep water. And seriously, does it get any more wide open or deep than the ocean? Gulp. It actually makes me a little squeedgy just thinking about it, being right there next to all that wide open blue-ness, with only a thin wall and tiny strip of road between me and the abyss. My chest is a little bit constricted, and the back of my knees are twitchy as I type. Honestly, I can’t even use the satellite view on Google Maps to scope out our cottage rental without feeling a lurching sense of vertigo.
I’ve always had this fear of wide open spaces. When I was a kid, I read every single book in the public library on astronomy, but almost never went outside and actually looked at the stars, because every time I did I had to dig my fingers into the grass to hold on for dear life, lest the earth fling me up into the endless vortex of space. When Beloved and I first got married, we had a little red Sunfire and I loved that car because I could sit in the driver’s seat with my seatbelt on and look at the stars through the moon roof, strapped in and perfectly secure. You might be laughing, but I’m serious!
It’s not just the night sky, though. You know those really big satellite dishes, not the consumer cable ones but the really big mothers? Yeah. They make me feel a little squeedgy, too. Something to do with them broadcasting out into space, I think, although there is absolutely nothing logical about this particular phobia — it’s as irrational as it is deep-seated.
The fear of deep water I may have come by through nurture instead of nature. When I was a kid, I jumped out of our little 16 foot boat to retrieve an anchor that had come loose from its line. Growing up in southern Ontario, it was my experience that any body of water in which you could see the bottom must be relatively shallow, so I jumped over the edge expecting to thump into the sandy bottom under about four feet of water. Unbeknownst to me, the perfectly clear water was closer to eight or ten feet deep, and I plunged in way over my head without touching the bottom, startling myself out of at least a year’s growth.
And it’s not just about swimming, either. When I flew to Europe in 1995 and again in 1999, I had to spend a lot of time telling myself, “We’re still flying over Labrador. Still flying over Labrador. Still flying over Labrador. Don’t look, don’t look. Still flying over Labrador, it’s all good.” *pause* “Okay, flying over Ireland now, flying over Ireland, I’m sure we’re flying over Ireland by now.” For the whole flight.
This spring, my folks went on a two week cruise from LA to Hawaii and back, and while I envied them the experience of visiting Hawaii, there’s no way I could do it. The cruise, I mean. The idea of being on a ship without *any* land in view? That’s so never going to happen. I can’t even stomach the idea of flying into Hawaii, because it’s this little tiny island in that vast sea of, well, sea. It wouldn’t take anything to slip off the edge of the island and sploosh, into the drink. *shudder*
So why the hell am I so hell bent on visiting the ocean that I’m willing to subject the entire family to 36 hours trapped in the car so I can spend a week not sleeping without tying myself into the bed for fear of the sea sucking me out into its murky spaciousness? For the same reason I always loved astronomy as a kid, I think. Like a moth drawn to a lightbulb. Because what terrifies you also fascinates you, and what repulses you is also compelling, at a fundamental level.
Plus, I don’t like to be afraid of things. I’m stubborn that way. While there’s no way in hell I’m ever going on a ship across that ocean, or even a big boat that carries me out of sight of land, I’ll choke down my fear and hold my breath to stand ankle deep in the surf. And try really hard not to shudder in front of the kids.
I have three kids, so not much scares me. Snakes, blood, heights, enclosed spaces — no problem. Bugs give me the creeping heebies, but what scares me on a truly visceral level are things that are deep, and vast. Like the ocean.
What freaks you out?