Love letter to fear.
Dear fear,
I've been taught to fear you and to wish you didn't exist.
The world is full of teachings that would have me confront you in order to tame you,
Control you,
Diminish you,
Overcome you,
Silence you,
And separate from you.
Mark Twain said,
Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.
Buddha said,
The whole secret of existence is to have no fear.
Where fear is,
Happiness is not,
Said Seneca.
The death of fear is the only death,
Said Krishnamurti.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,
Said FDR.
Gandhi said,
The enemy is fear.
We think it is hate,
But it is fear.
It's tough to argue with sage souls.
Even Marilyn has no love for you.
We should all start to live before we get too old.
Fear is stupid,
Sower regrets,
She said.
Life has taught me something else.
Life has taught me that if I make you my enemy,
I make an enemy of me.
If I disown you,
My fear,
I disown what it means to be a human woman and a breathing living artist.
What has it ever cost me,
Really cost me to acknowledge you and own you?
Have I been irreparably defeated,
Or have I only ever gained from your lead?
You who has the uncanniest way of showing me the path,
Not by leading me along it,
But by pointing me to it.
You who are not my leaping and my flying,
But the miles of ground leading to the edge of everything that has ever been extraordinary and in retrospect,
Essential.
I used to believe it was you who kept me from crossing the street,
But really it was you who kept me from staying where I was.
The feeling in my mother's hand as she stepped off of the curb with my small hand in hers,
That was her fear.
I first learned that fear feeling from her.
I learned it so I could recognize it,
And I've seen it again and again in the eyes of people and animals in the movement of crowds.
I've heard it in the faint-hearted gasp of someone not coming along with me,
Or someone looking back over their shoulder.
I almost never see it in very young children.
Fear you are not our first response.
You are our learned response.
People talk about being free of feeling afraid.
Is that even possible?
Can I be free of feeling my heart racing,
My stomach turning,
My mind playing tricks?
How would I know these things,
These life-defining things if I were free of you?
You are life to me,
Fear.
Without you I am dead,
Dead to myself.
The people who know me longest and best know that my first response to any new and really worthwhile thing is resistance.
I may shrug,
Furrow my brow,
Step back,
Step around.
It's my way of buying time.
I never go into the really good stuff,
The stuff most destined to be me and mine straight out of the gate.
My resistance is you,
Fear.
That wall of no is how you get yourself across to me,
For an hour,
A day,
A year even if the stakes are high.
It all depends on what's on the other side waiting for my yes.
And the stronger you feel to me,
The closer I know I am to my jewel.
You're my safety,
But not in the conventional sense.
I'm not safely stuck to you.
I know you don't want me for yourself.
You've gone five decades without so much as a blown kiss from me,
Let alone a missive of love like this and look how you've thrived.
You're my safety and that you want the utmost for me.
There near the heart of me,
The core of me,
The best of me is where you are and how I've learned to trust that.
As artist,
I have long said,
Fear is fuel.
You are the way in.
You are not what's at the core.
Whenever a powerful experience has touched me and opened me up to the wondrous,
Elusive and transcendent nature of life,
My moments in the wilderness,
In music,
In deep,
Deep loving,
I've always noticed you absent.
When my soul has been deeply moved and engaged,
You have not been there,
Fear.
In every step of the aisle into long partnership or downstage to the footlights and the fleeting moments of connection,
In every exit visa,
In every whimper of my heartbreaking open,
There you are,
Like a chaperone,
You old chap.
You don't want me to cleave to you like anxiety,
Hallucination,
Terror and madness would have me do.
You want me to breathe through you,
Shake you off,
Move with you.
That band of prickly heat I feel on my neck on a dark street at night is you.
That cosmic,
No gravity,
Free-wheeling feeling in the pit of my stomach when I look down from a very high place is you.
That flutter in my heart at the sight of someone electrifyingly resonant with my being is you.
I know you had a name once,
Long,
Long ago and all but forgotten.
I know you came with wings and fire for anything seeking birth.
You've been here always.
In that fateful spark that became me,
I summoned you for my journey.
At long last I have the words to tell you what you've always known,
That without you,
I don't exist.
Without you,
I don't create.
Without you,
I don't breathe,
Bleed,
Feed,
Live and love.
The day you die,
My fear,
I will die with you.
Until then,
You are my compass guiding me toward all that I am meant to be and not to be.
I say to you,
My fear,
The bird of courage flies with wings of fear.
