Fear Is In The Eye Of The Beholder...From The Pages Of An Insomniac

My one and only picture of lightning, captured in Wyoming

This morning I had the unique experience of leveling with one of my greatest fears--not just facing it but holding it in my hand, at eye level, and letting it speak for itself for the first time. I discovered that fear is not all it's cracked up to be, and, not to go over the edge with this but--I also discovered that a lot of barriers can be dropped, a lot of new worlds opened up, and a lot of inner turmoil can be cleared when we let go of fear.

Half Dome, Yosemite Park with my brother

When I was younger I was afraid of several things, the main fears being spiders, heights, lightning, and the dark. As I grew older the fear of heights went away and I was able to sit on the ledges of mountains with my dad, an incredible joy I would never have known otherwise. The fear of the dark faded and I could go star gazing with my brother and family, another piece of natural wonder that fear would have stolen from me. That left me with two. The lightning one, however irrational, is still with me. In my love of photography I wanted desperately to capture a picture of lightning once and drove out into the hills on my cousins' ranch for that purpose. I was so overcome with paralyzing fear halfway through that I got part of a good shot and then flew like a bat out of hell home on the four-wheeler, a cloud of dust marking my way from a mile off. I know lightning isn't going to chase me down. I know I'm more likely to get hit by a fallen plane part then to be struck by it...and yet the fear remains, limiting my ability to enjoy a thunderstorm or dance in the rain as I've seen others do.

One of my lady bug shots from a later shoot

Insects, bugs, and other multi-limbed creatures are by far my favorite things to photograph. This kind of odd hobby came about Freshmen year of college when a ladybug snuck into my room and for the first time in my life, through the lens of a zoomed-in digital, I was able to see the jointed legs, the branch-like feet, the ribbed belly, the filmy laced wings, and even the tiny mouth of a creature that I'd always just thought of as "round" and "spotted." Details that I never knew existed proved to me again that this is a fantastic world we live in and there is artistry in the hand of every living thing, big or small. Since then I have taken every opportunity to get close to the creepy crawlies, including beetles, praying mantis, katydids, wasps, grasshoppers, and moths. But, like lightning, the one thing I could not photograph was my old nemesis, the spider.

My cousins on the ranch probably still laugh about the time I almost had a mental breakdown when a big hairy spider came around the toilet in the bathroom and all I had to kill it with was a piece of 2x4. (My cousin eventually squished it for me, as I lashed at the floor in a million directions and the spider just sat and watched me--mocked me--until I was almost in tears). Last year my fear changed somewhat: the house I lived in at college had a lot of crawling visitors including several species of spiders, and because of how numerous they were I eventually stopped screamed bloody murder at the sight of a hobo or a brown recluse. It was an easy and automatic process to find a shoe, take aim, and scrape the guts off on the sidewalk outside afterwards. There was even a fuzzy outdoor spider that made his nest above our front door, and as he earned his keep by eating all the bugs drawn by the glow of our porch-light I developed a kind of respect for him, and we lived in harmony.

Still I longed to capture a spider with my camera, and until this morning I never thought I would. The difference between the hobo that crawled underneath my door in the early hours today and the dozens of hobos I've destroyed in the past is simple: luck. The spider was lucky that when I found him that I was too tired to lunge for a shoe right away, and I was lucky that the spider chose to run into the little plastic bag I was prodding him out of a corner with instead of around it where I would be forced out of fear to crush the life out of it. I realized what had happened first and quickly taped the bag closed while the spider searched its surroundings, wondering what the dickens was going on.

For about an hour (my camera had to charge its batteries) the spider and I had a staring contest. Inch by inch I got closer to it, reminding myself that it couldn't escape and it wouldn't attack me. At last I could see the shape of its mouth, the stripes on its back, the hairs running along its body. At last I could look it in its eyes and realize that it was something beautiful, just like the ledge of a mountain or the sky at night. As I spent more time with it I came to respect it more, and when I let it go outside some distance from the dormitory I felt like some weight had been lifted from me.

Of course, this post is about more than spiders and photography. As I faced my fear tonight I thought of other fears I still have, that most of us have, as human beings making our way blindly through life. Fears of offending others, fears of acceptance, fears of failure or tragedy or death. I thought of how terrified I am to be a leader and how that has affected my ability to keep the food bank club running smoothly. I thought of how terrified I've been lately of my own heart and how it has kept me from focusing on the real issues at hand. Most of all, I thought of the future. I worry all the time about what I'll become and who I'll be this time next year, and as a mother, and as a grandmother, and when I die what will be said at my funeral. Why? What good is there in always looking forward or backward when all the time life is being lived right now?

There is a zen saying--"The only real moment is this moment." I wish that I could live in this moment more, realize that there is so much more out there than what's in here. This is my message for the week for those of you who read this, and I hope that you get the chance someday to stare your fear in the face and free yourself of it. You'd be amazed at the changes it brings

My friend, the spider (saved it for last so it wouldn't freak everyone out right away =P)