Fear, Light and the “Half Light”

When I was a child, if I saw a wasp from a distance, my heart used to pump fast, and I would go into a quiet panic. I’d not be able to function for fear of it flying in my direction.

I know what it’s like to be really, really afraid of something. My whole life, I’ve struggled with an irrational phobia of wasps. This fear is not a normal, healthy avoidance of a possible sting; it is an anxiety deeply rooted in my psyche.

I’ve been up close and personal with venomous snakes, swum in shark infested beaches and casually brushed deadly spiders off my arm. Like most people who’ve spent part of their lives in Australia, I certainly had a healthy respect for these creatures, but my fear was never debilitating. Not so with wasps, I still freeze when one is close by.

When I was a child, if I saw a wasp from a distance, my heart used to pump fast, and I would go into a quiet panic. I’d not be able to function for fear of it flying in my direction. I’d drop whatever I was doing and walk backwards towards the indoors, trying not to lose eye contact. This was not only embarrassing for a boy, but frustrating for others’ around me. I didn’t want to be terrified of such a small insect, but I could not talk myself out of the anxiety, no matter how hard I tried. I’d rather be teased as a sissy than stay within eyesight of a wasp. It wasn’t really a choice for me, though; I simply could not distract myself from the perceived threat like others could.

Like many teenagers in the 1980s, I had the regular chore of mowing the lawn. I did not like doing this for a raft of reasons, but the culture in Texas back then was not one where parents did much negotiation with their kids on such matters. All of my friends and I were given responsibilities around the home and were expected to get them done. When the Walkman portable cassette player came out, this task became more tolerable, but, even then, I’d look for excuses to procrastinate until, inevitably, the grass was so high that I risked losing privileges for ignoring it.

One Saturday morning, I awoke to the familiar suburban buzz of several lawnmowers humming in cacophony from different directions. Keenly aware that my parents were hearing the same sounds and seeing the calf-high jungle of St. Augustine out the window, I was forced to surrender to the situation. (By the way, how does grass get named after a saint?)

So I rolled out of bed, brushed my teeth, then went straight to open the garage door. Squinting through the morning illumination, I could see Mr. Sanchez across the road, sporting a set of orange plastic earmuffs, pushing his mower while somehow maintaining a macho Hispanic broad-shouldered perma-flex of his arms and chest. Due to what I assume were certain new-wave/goth inspired experimental hairstyles and piercings, he showed very little regard for me, so I didn’t bother with a wave.

I wheeled the mower out into the driveway. As my father taught me, I checked the fuel, primed the pump and then thought to go inside to fetch a glass of ice water. All that was left to do was to pull the handle attached to the rope a few times, back off the choke and off I’d go, listening to a demo tape from a local band called Bouffant Jellyfish that I’d selected for the morning's soundtrack.

After returning from the kitchen, I approached the driveway and then, in horror, froze in my tracks. There, perched smugly on the very handle I was about to pull, was a large Texas red wasp. At this point in my life, I’d grown weary of this phobia and was actively looking for ways to overcome it. Feeling flushed by the first wave of anxiety, I started taking deep breaths and telling myself the oft cited mantra, “It’s more afraid of you than you are of it.” I seriously doubted this was the case, as the wasp seemed quite comfy sitting defiantly with me only a couple of metres away. (I’m similarly defiant to go back to the imperial system of measurement.)

The mantra didn’t work, but the breathing helped to settle my nerves and, rather than backing up to the door, I decided that the time had come to take a stand against this senseless anxiety that had disrupted my outdoor life for the last decade and a half. I challenged myself to face my fear and see if I could get close enough to the insect to brush it off the handle with my hand, like I’d seen others do, and go about my work.

For some reason, I thought that to squat down might be an easier way to creep forward than to approach standing up. Keeping my eye on the prize, I slowly lowered my rear end to a few centimetres from the driveway. From this lower angle of vision, I felt a new wave of anxiety creep over me. Breathing deeply, I saw in my periphery Mr. Sanchez looking over with a disdainful smirk. I was not going to let his low opinion of me affect my task. I hit play on the Walkman to block out those thoughts. I needed to make some progress towards the handle, now repurposed in my mind as some sort of wasp-throne that my most intense nemesis now graced.

So I managed to shuffle forward a little. Progress! But rather than allowing myself to be bolstered by a celebratory feeling of accomplishment, the darkness of anxiety fought back. I froze again.

“Deep breaths. I’m not giving up.”, I thought.

Then, it surfaced in my mind the notion of prayer, “Jesus could help me through this.” So I articulated in my mind a simple and sincere call for help to face this fear. Something about the prayer seemed to then convert the entire experience, at least in my mind, into a test of my faith. I thought that I now had to move forward if I truly believed that God would protect me. I remembered stories I’d read about Daniel being thrown into the lion’s den and David, as a boy, facing the giant Golaith. This gave me courage to take another couple of awkward shuffles towards the goal.

Now, within reach of the wasp, I froze again as I was gripped by real physical panic. I felt myself shaking in my low top Converse All-stars. I wanted to jump up and bolt into the house, but I’d already made it this far. All I needed to do was psyche myself into reaching out and brush the wasp away; victory would be mine. Praise the Lord! What was so hard about that?

So I squatted there in a suburban Houston driveway, with a hissy cassette blaring poorly recorded 80s funk/punk in my ears, trying everything I could to muster enough courage to simply move my arm.

Then, without any warning, the wasp took flight and came straight towards my head. I immediately fell over on my back and kicked my legs out, sending the mower down the drive. I wriggled on the concrete, thinking that the wasp might have lodged itself in my long, unkempt morning hair. I rolled around, thinking that spastic movement might somehow scare the wasp away. My headphones were dislodged, and I writhed in this sort of entomologically-induced Sufi-like existential oblivion of external consciousness. To use a modern vernacular frame: I lost my shit.

It took some time for it to dawn on me that I had not been stung. I’m not sure how long I panicked, but eventually I calmed down and, still lying on my back, breathed big breaths while I looked up at the clear blue sky with a thankful thought to my Lord who had always been there for me through my childhood. I made it! I couldn’t exactly take the credit, as I was embarrassed for my reaction, and didn’t actually reach my hand out. But I prayerfully made it within arms reach of my most intense fear.

I sat up and saw Mr. Sanchez, still flexed, looking over at me as he mowed down another column of his yard. I would have honestly preferred a ridiculing head shake or laugh, but he saw me looking at him and nervously looked away, as if to pretend that he didn’t just see my spectacle of inner-triumph.

I gathered my Walkman, marched over to the mower, grabbed that handle and energetically revved up the engine in one pull. Engaging the blade, I took my victory lap around the perimeter of the front yard. Nobody knew what was going on inside of me, and nobody needed to know. With the help of my deity, I’d gone through a rite of passage. Jaya Narayana!

Some retrospection: These fears that people have are real, even though they make little sense to those who aren’t afflicted with that particular phobia. If other people are in our care, we need to take the utmost caution to be empathic and allow them to grow, knowing that they’re loved and supported.

Let
Others
Voluntarily
Evolve

My mind goes to the late nineteenth century composition of W. B. Yeats entitled “Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven”:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Suburban Mysticism is free, but if you feel inspired and want to share some love, consider buying Ekendra a broccoli.

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No part of this text was generated with artificial intelligence; just “flawsome” human thoughts here … with, of course, homage to The Algorithm that abides over us all.

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