The dictionary defines Fear as a feeling of alarm caused by an expectation of danger. Similarly, it defines Phobia as an intense, persistent, abnormal or illogical fear of a specific thing or situation.
I don’t remember having any great fears or phobias while I was growing up. I remember my children and later my grandchildren saying “It’s too dark in here!” and “Is there a monster under the bed?” I imagine at an early age that I might have had similar fears or phobias, but that was too long ago to remember.
When I became an adult and had children of my own, I developed the usual mother fears for my children. “What if they fall out of bed?” “What if they run out into the street?” ”What if they get hit by a car while riding a bike” “What will they do if approached by a stranger?” “What if they are in a car accident while driving?” “What if they are confronted by a shark while scuba diving?” The list of potential fears or phobias never ends when one considers the kinds of mischief that children of all ages can get into. But, for myself, I don’t remember having any particular fears or phobias about my life during my early adulthood. My first experience with real fear for myself occurred one spring weekend when we took a family outing.
As children, both my husband and I had experienced touring natural caverns. Because our memories of those trips were positive, we decided to introduce our own children to the education and fun of cave exploring. At the time our kids were ages 9, 7, 5 and 2. We identified two caverns fairly close to home: Mercer Caverns in the Sierra foothills north of Murphys, California, and Moaning Caverns not far away from there. We packed a picnic lunch and headed off on a bright, cool spring day for our adventure.
We stopped at Mercer caverns first. It reminded me of the Oregon Caves, which I had toured in my childhood. The cavern was beautiful, open and easy to maneuver. Next, we enjoyed our picnic on a flower-covered grassy slope, close to the road. After lunch, we headed up a rather steep, curvy mountain road toward the second cavern. For the first time that I can recall, I felt some uneasiness in traveling the switchbacks on that narrow road. After all, fifteen years before my grandfather had met his death by driving off a cliff after falling asleep at the wheel. My apprehension only intensified on our trip back; sitting on the passenger side, I felt like I was right on the edge of the steep jagged cliffs, miles above the valley floor.
When we arrived at our destination at the mountaintop, a sign announced that Moaning Cavern offered tours for everyone: from families with children to the most adventuresome explorers. As we started our tour through the caverns, I found myself in line behind a rather rotund gentleman who weighed approximately 300 pounds. Fairly early on, we had to get down on our hands and knees, and crawl through a rather tight crevice. Predictably, the rotund explorer got stuck, and our progress stopped until the tour guide could extricate him.
We next headed into the largest room in the cavern, described as “large enough to stand the Statue of Liberty in it.” In the middle of the room arose a 100-foot spiral staircase. We were escorted to the bottom of the stairs and directed to climb up. As luck would have it, my 300-pound fellow explorer headed up the stairs ahead of me. I was carrying our youngest child, Kate, in one arm, which left me only one hand to grasp the railing. The higher we climbed, the more fearful I became. I kept thinking: “If the big fellow ahead of me slips on a step and slides back on top of us, we’d be goners.” What if I lose my grip on the railing or, worse yet, my grip on Kate?” My ankles began to shake. It was all I could do to hold my footing on the narrow, winding stairs. I can’t even describe my relief when the climb ended; despite my apprehension and growing fears, we had made it up in one piece. It was very fortunate that there was no further climbing either up or down stairs, as I don’t think my ankles would have held out any longer. I have never forgotten this experience. From that day forward, fears of heights and claustrophobia have plagued me.
I am happy to say that thirty years later, after studying various methods of overcoming fears and phobias, I felt brave enough to tour the Kartchner Caverns in Arizona. And I actually enjoyed the trip! But, then again, I didn’t get too cocky; I made sure there was no spiral staircase before I ventured in.
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