Fear is an odd thing. I know. It is a basic emotion that promotes self preservation, but it’s so strange the way it can build in your brain, like silly string, shooting out and tangling up your thoughts. Like the moon, popping out in the dark of night, waking you from the deepest sleep, self magnifying to sometimes monumentous, gargantuan proportions the little thing we were originally afraid of.
We fear each other, ourselves, opportunities and failures, and our fear can be fed and harvested by the manipulative and powerful, making the daylight hard to break, making the haunting shadows hard to push back into the closet awaiting to return on some later date.
I’m afraid of what I can’t see, but I know to be there. Too many National Geographics read, too many nature shows, too many overly dramatic Shark Weeks. This year, I took my brother up on an invite to partner with him on the Casco Bay Swim Run. An epic race covering about 16 miles of running streets, trails and rocks, and a series of open water swims totaling 8700 meters – if we could hold our course and not get pulled by the current. Stephen and I are both good swimmers, but mostly stick to the pool. However, after a really sore neck and back after a 5 k swim in Miami, I realized the only way to master open water, especially such a daunting distance, was to train open water…..time to face my fear.
I don’t really think that sharks or crocodiles (Did you know the only place in America with salt water crocodiles is South Florida?) would decide not to make a meal of you because you were in the company of “dessert” or a “second course”, but for some reason, swimming with another person just melts away the fear (at least until I hit a fish, or piece of seaweed cruelly imitating Jaws. My incredible work partners swam with me twice a week for months, helping me train (no one wants to lose a partner … More nights on call). And, I started trying to conquer my fear, desperately singing “Moana” when I swam alone and doing unintentional sprint training- every time I get the heebie jeebies I race back to the shore, only to convince myself that I’m being foolish and head back out, only to get the heebie jeebies and dash in again. Rediculous.
Some people fear what they don’t understand, what they can’t identify with. Perhaps a person who speaks a different language or follows a different spiritual path. Perhaps a person with a different lifestyle. To some, a media clip is twisted into the definition of a people, of a culture, of a human. A monster is made of a man, or religion, or way of life.
The day before the race we rode the CascoBayLines Ferry to the island that we were staying on. So much natural beauty, it’s hard to describe. Much to my delight we saw a harbor seal popping in and out of the whitecaps. At 2 am, I awoke to the clear realization that where there are seals, there are great whites, and spent the next hour googling “are there great white sharks in Casco Bay”. (Yes…. There are, and I thought that was the bad news of the night).
And then, in the morning, I flipped on the news. And there I saw what happens when humans fear. I saw what happens when fear is harnessed for power and politics. Fear turns to hate. Groups emboldened by lack of national moral guidance and Machiavellian politics feed and grow on their fears and seek to destroy that what they don’t understand. Love. Peace. Families. Hate can rise like a forest fire and seek the destruction of anyone who doesn’t look like them, doesn’t love like them, doesn’t worship like them. So blinded by the smoke from the burning fire that hate can’t see that there is only one love, the same love, the love that shines from a mother’s eyes onto her beautiful children is the same whether it comes from eyes that are blue, black or green. The kisses and lullabies are the same whether they are sung in English, Spanish, Arabic or Hebrew.
Haven’t we learned this lesson before?
And so I swam without fear (but with at least feigned confidence to convince any great whites that I would not be a weak easy prey…. Because I’m sure that great whites think like that), and with tremendous love of the adventure, and the ocean, and of my family and brother, and for my body that is still able to do this, and of the very scary sharks and crocodiles. Truly, they are beautiful magnificent creatures and human fear has nearly annihilated them before. And, if they are going to eat me at least I would have really enjoyed the last moments of life…..
And, I swam without hate.
Hate has no home here.
As I travel home, leaving the rocky shores and amazing strangers that cheered for me, offered water and encouragement as we trekked mile after mile through flowers and gorgeous view and cold, strong ocean currents, I see from the window of our taxi, train and plane, the beauty of this nation of ours. A melting pot. By design. By declaration. From rocky coasts to sandy beaches. From different accents to different languages. There is no one image of America or an American.
That’s what made America great. Love.
