So here I am, out of the big city, away from the bright lights, yet still I wonder the city streets.
A couple nights ago I took a walk. It's about 10pm and Ash had gone to bed, so it's just me, the darkness and the night sky. I was excited to get to see the night sky. It's one of the simple amazing realities of life that you lose in a big city simply because there is to much of life's lights around.
So I walk down my street a couple blocks and I'm out of town, like farmland out of town. Unlucky for me, I decided to walk under a full moon, so I might as well have had the big city lights to flood the sky. The night sky was almost as bright as daylight, so the vastness of the stary host was mitigated to a similar sky to that of suburban life. Yet still I continued on.
I walked another quarter-mile or so, just enough to come to the first farmhouse outside town. There just happened to be an old graveyard just before this house. My mind chuckled as it thought this is the beginning of a bad scary movie.
So as I walk by this house there is a grove of trees, not quite a full forest, but enough to cast a significant shadow on the country road my feet traveled. So I stopped in the shadow and looked up, hoping that the shade of the trees would provide some relief from the lunar light pollution.
I stood there for about two minutes or so and that is when it came over me. I started to see, in my mind a giant, brown hair wildly covered animal, bigger than a grizzly bear, with teeth more terrifying than any animal I've ever seen. It's jagged edges burned in the mind's eye as it seemed to creep towards me. I could hear it's roar in my mind's ear. It was at that moment that my entire body froze up in fear. Sheer terror ran through my veins, as if my blood was drained and replaced by some sort of stiff liquid. I could not move. I could hear Dr. Alan Grant's words in my head, "Stay still and it won't see you." Yet my heart finally started pumping blood again and my legs, as if they were acting independently, began to make their way back to the town edge.
Slowly their pace quickened, until all of a sudden I found myself about half way back to town, on the other side of the road. I stopped. In an instant I almost busted out in laughter. It was as if I had came back to my senses. There was not grizzly bearish monster in the shadows. It was just me out there.
I stood there, staring at a tree for a moment, wondering what had just come over me. Then, for whatever reason, I don't know, I looked back, knowing I would see nothing, but curiosity had the best of me. As I turned my head, I noticed it standing there on the edge of the road. I took one step closer to it, wondering what may be disturbing this peaceful evening stroll.
I took another step, then it bolted. To my realization it was nothing more than a barn cat, wandering the night as they often do. One would think that finding it was simply a cuddly feline would ease my spirit. Yet to the contrary my heart quickened and my legs brought me to a faster pace.
As I continued towards the safety of home, my head stayed turned watching the night creature run the other way. It wasn't until I reached the safety of my yard that I started to laugh uncontrollably at my current predicament. I was scarred off by a little kitty cat. The fear I felt was real. It gripped my entire body. I was paralyzed by it, destined to run by it's command.
In that moment I begin to realize that this was more than just a simple silly scary story, or a random happening. It was as if this incident was a summary of my entire life. I step out on a path into dark unknown, only to let irrational fear take me grab me and push me back to the safety and comfort of the familiar. I created a terrifying obstacle to my further advancement out of a human companion, who could do no more damaged than cause my nose to run, (allergies).
It got me thinking how often had I done this very thing in the past, watched opportunities go by me because I was too afraid to step out and face whatever was in the darkness of the unknown. How often do I let irrational fears hold me back from amazing opportunities that are just on the other side of the darkness?
Shall I continue to adventure out into the unknown, only to run back at the first hint of the terrible unknown? Or shall I learn to persevere through the terrible, instilling the instinct to fight instead of flight?
Answers I'm sure will come with time.
Maybe next time I will see the grizzly bear for what it is, a kitty cat.
