Leap

In a matter of weeks, I will be returning to Canada after an absence of twenty-six years. I will not be returning to my childhood home, but I will be moving into my parents’ home outside Bancroft, Ontario in a village called McArthur Mills. Once my families vacation cottage, “up-north,” my parents renovated the place, and then moved in permanently when my father retired. 

It shouldn’t surprise you, too much, that the village was named after a man called McArthur who founded a Mill; not for grain, but for sawing timber. With towering forests of untouched pine trees, a water wheel to power the saws, and a river on which to float the logs to the mill, Mr. McArthur found success. The waterway also provided a means of transport for the dimensional lumber and shingles that were the products of the mill. Canoes paddled up and down the river-bound trade routes bringing household goods and foodstuffs from Norway Bay, which were then carried to, and from, the river on horseback, or by foot. Trade remained tied to the waterways until roads could be blasted through the hilly and rocky terrain. The village was born, and a post office, dry-goods store, and school were erected, all before roads could be made passable year-round. That was all before 1900. 

Today, while most of the land remains relatively untouched, a steady flow of cars travels in and out of the village to work in Bancroft, and Peterborough in one direction, or Barry’s Bay, and Pembroke in the other. Logging is still a viable trade in the area. Telecommuting is common, via high-speed satellite, as are multiple seasonal income streams, internet based commerce, and the bartering of skills, services, and goods. I don’t think Mr. McArthur - as forward thinking as he was said to be - could imagine a world in which globally connected citizens lived in comfort, and worked without leaving the safety of their homes. 

While this is not exactly my own version of Waldon Pond, it is still a rural community - right around 3,800 people - perched, more or less, on the banks of The Little Mississippi River. Its nearest neighbor is called Tweed, and has a population of right around 5,800. I am writing this to illustrate the fact that when I say rural, I mean RURAL!

I am grateful to have a safe place to land, as well as the support of family, and I am ready to embrace the quieter aspects of life, however; this is a leap into the unknown, and such things always include an element of fear. 

It’s not the minutia that I’m afraid of. The packing, moving, filing paperwork, learning to navigate new places, and social situations, are all things I’ve done many times before. What I’m afraid of is potential. To make a long story short, I am married to an American citizen, but that does not make me an American citizen, and the marriage license alone doesn’t give anyone the full rights, and privileges that most people have been led to believe it does. Returning to Canada, I will truly be free to do the things I’ve been dreaming of for so many years. Things like, going back to school, and publishing my own work. There is a kind of safety to being cocooned up with your dreams, when you know legally there is nothing you can do to make them happen. Even a bad situation, is a known situation, and can feel safer than the unknown. Without the impediments that have become intrinsic to my life here, I am forced out of all my hiding places, and need to either pursue the things I’ve been dreaming of, or
let them go. In other words: it’s time to put up, or shut up!

Contemporary thinking says I should bash fear upside the head, and then move its limp form to the side: tackle it, as if it were a bear to be stuffed and mounted on my wall. That is macho bullshit! Also, it does not work! Denial is nothing, if it is not a manifestation of fear. You cannot hope to fight fear with another form of fear, and choosing to fight fear is always going to be a losing battle. I am choosing, instead, to take a softer approach: to be grateful to fear for keeping me safe, which is its true function, but not allow it to rule over my actions. Vigilance is, and has been, a very important part of our evolution. Our brain will always be checking the horizon for signs of trouble, and it’s important that fear be allowed to do its job. Yes, it feels unpleasant, but it is also compulsory to our survival. Taking a page from someone else’s book, I try to deal with my fears by addressing them as spectral visitors, and I say to them, sometimes aloud, “I hear you, old friend. I understand, and appreciate that you are only trying to keep me safe, but I’m going to do this anyway.”

It’s not a one-hundred percent fool-proof exercise, but it often helps, and it’s much more effective than trying to not be afraid by my own will alone. Hiding emotions is antithetical to who I am, or ever hope to be. As a writer, they are essential, you might even say they are the meat and produce of the trade, but I do not need to be governed by them either. 

Isn’t that what bravery is at its most basic? Feeling the fear, but steadfastly doing the thing that is fearsome?

I think so.

If you like this, or even if you didn’t, or, if you have some other helpful methods for coping with fear you feel inclined to share, please comment below. And please, follow this blog to keep up with my cooking, and writing adventures.