Outranked
In my twenties, I fell in love with someone who skied,
so I learned to ski.
Fear of heights beginning
somewhere around
the third rung
of a ladder
notwithstanding.
The first chairlift felt like an out-of-body spiritual awakening.
A narrow seat suspended by a cable.
Nothing beneath my feet
except a mountain patiently
getting further
and further away.
Suddenly, I couldn’t hear.
I couldn’t feel my legs.
Then
going down the mountain.
Seeing the smile
on his face
and feeling
the one
on mine.
And winter repeated itself.
Ride after ride.
Eventually, I didn’t even notice the ground
dropping away.
Exposure therapy
begins
with a simple idea.
The nervous system can learn.
Not by avoiding what it fears,
but by surviving it
again and again.
I remember thinking
I had overcome my fear of heights.
It turns out fear is less like a disease
than a language.
You can stop speaking it for years,
then one day,
without warning,
discover you’re still fluent.
Now my daughter loves the rides at Coney Island.
The higher.
The faster.
The louder.
The better.
She points toward the sky with complete confidence.
Can we ride
that one?
Please?
I look up
and calculate structural integrity,
wind speed,
bolt fatigue,
the probability
of becoming a
cautionary news story.
She sees an adventure.
I see gravity
quietly maintaining
its perfect record.
I climb aboard another machine
designed to suspend human beings
well above their better judgment.
The safety bar clicks into place.
My body remembers
the chairlift.
The ride begins.
My daughter throws both arms into the air.
I grip the bar
with the concentration of someone
who believes
grip strength
influences
structural integrity.
Halfway through,
I realize
the fear hasn’t disappeared.
It has simply
been outranked.
Once,
I climbed because I was in love.
Now,
I climb because I am her mother.
Different love.
The same willingness
to let another person
rearrange the boundaries
of what my body believes
it can survive.
Love,
it turns out,
has never asked me
to become fearless.
Only
to keep getting on.