Quarantining Fear

Whenever I walk in a London street,
I'm ever so careful to watch my feet;
And I keep in the squares,
And the masses of bears,
Who wait at the corners all ready to eat
The sillies who tread on the lines of the street
Go back to their lairs,
And I say to them, "Bears,
Just look how I'm walking in all the squares!"

And the little bears growl to each other, "He's mine,
As soon as he's silly and steps on a line."
And some of the bigger bears try to pretend
That they came round the corner to look for a friend;
And they try to pretend that nobody cares
Whether you walk on the lines or squares.
But only the sillies believe their talk;
It's ever so portant how you walk.
And it's ever so jolly to call out, "Bears,
Just watch me walking in all the squares!"
A.A. Milne

Everyone who has read A.A. Milne knows to watch their feet, to be ever so careful not to walk on the lines. Milne’s story of the masses of bears waiting to eat the sillies who tread on the lines of the street filled me with fear and trepidation and I clung tightly to my parents arms as we walked across the jetty at the beach for fear of falling through the cracks.

As an adult I have developed a sophisticated adamantine security system that includes motion detectors, sensors and burglar alarms’ Doors to my inner self are locked with the finest locking systems and the keys do not have serrated edges, like normal keys have. Instead they are pocked with unique patterns of depressions and cannot readily be duplicated. No one has a key to this inner sanctum that is locked at all times.

Why this stern isolation? Isolating feelings has been a mechanism I have developed over time to ensure that no one, least of all myself, has to confront the marauding bears that growl to each other and say ‘she’s mine.’ I have believed that the contents of the inner laboratory are so corrosive that to step inside would be like opening Pandora’s box and that I would not slam the lid in time to prevent hope from escaping.

Recently, upon viewing an exhibition of the grotesque I felt an overwhelming desire to gaze in the face of my fears and, in doing so, thaw them. Of recent days I have yearned to enter the locked laboratory, to look directly at the grim manifestations that I have feared and in so doing remove any terror that lingers in my heart. Truth, I feel, wants to be discovered.


to be continued