Wednesday, October 31, 2012

What scares you?


It's Halloween today and I can imagine that many people across the US certainly don't want or need anything else to scare them. Real life is scary enough as it is. And then I'm thinking of all the poor little kids who have the costume and the Trick and Treat pail and nowhere to go. Mother Nature can certainly disrupt our frail human plans, can't it?

But because it is Halloween I'm thinking about what I'm scared of. Mostly it's silly things, primeval things like the dark and spiders. I don't know why I'm scared of the dark but I still have to sleep with my door open a crack and light coming in from the hall. When I'm in a hotel room I have to open the drapes enough to see around the room.

 And spiders...i know they are good and helpful and I shouldn't be scared, but I am. Of course there were a couple of times when I should have been scared like the time I carried out a big spider in a glass with just a sheet of paper between me and it and discovered from the photo we took that it was a brown recluse. And once in Australia I went to the bathroom at a national park, closed the door and a huge, large, very, very big Huntsman spider, about 4 inches across and hairy, crawled and sat on top of the door. I had visions of it dropping onto my hand if I tried to open the door but didn't want to spend the rest of my life in a restroom. My heart was certainly beating fast as I pulled that door open, inch by inch, then ran for my life, convinced that the spider was sitting on my shoulder laughing....

A writer's imagination is sometimes dangerous. It is prone to embellishing reality and presenting a worst-case scenario.  Oh, and I'm scared of moths. But not snakes or sharks. I have swum with baracudas. I have stood on narrow mountain ledges. Makes no sense. How about you. What scares you most?

4 comments:

  1. I used to not be afraid of snakes, until we had some move into our house. We found probably about 4 in our home. Luckily we then found out where they were coming in at (under the stove) and we able catch them with sticky traps. We probably had about 20 snakes in a year. Luckily they have moved out now and my fear of them is not as strong. They still startle me and I have the initial fear, but it goes away thankfully.

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  2. Anna; Your experience creeps me out.I don't think I could still live in the house if I thought snakes might get in again. That is the only creature I am afraid of. I found out that I was afraid of heights when I went to the top of the Eiffel Tower and had to walk with my back pressed against the wall

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  3. I felt your pain with the Huntsmans! When we lived in Australia, we'd find them in our house. I woke up a few mornings with them in the bedroom. I slept with my shut from then on!!

    I think what scares me most these days is my children dying or me dying before they are grown. I want to be there for them, and losing either of them would be devestating.
    ~Kimberly

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  4. While I don't want spiders or snakes in my house, I'm not really afraid of them. I have a healthy respect for about any wild animal like bears or cougars. I can't think of any THING I'm afraid of under all circumstances. I am however so frightened of tight places where I can't get out easily that I can't even watch people crawling through air ducts on TV without breaking out into a cold sweat. It's a recent development, and I don't know where it came from.

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