Fear

            I wonder what it’s like when real fear grips you. I’ve experienced fear, but never an all-encompassing, potentially life-changing or life-threatening fear. I hope never to experience that. In my limited exposure to fear, I seem to have a pattern of brain freeze, extreme myopia, and an absolute need to control, which tends to come out as anger. I don’t think I’d do well with real fear.

            My younger son reminded me this past weekend of the time we were driving in Missouri and it began to rain so hard the windshield wipers were useless. The shoulder of the next underpass being already packed, we turned off at the next road, then off that road onto a farm lane. I began yelling at my husband that not only couldn’t we see but we’d be stuck forever in the mud. I didn’t ask which part of the episode my son remembered.

My Life in Car Accidents

      I’ve been diagnosed with severe problems in my cervical spine with a recommendation of surgery to nip in the bud the risk of paralysis. I’ve considered that perhaps this is the long awaited answer to my occasional thought in my adult life that if only something were really wrong it would justify my depression and malaise—living chemically does not always keep these gremlins at bay. But I don’t think spinal cord surgery is what I had in mind. Contemplating it has much too much potential for mushrooming in the mind, even if it is apparently somewhat routine. I can’t say what concretely bad thing would be a good candidate to wake me up permanently to life’s daily songs and roses. It certainly can’t involve my children. Actually, I think this is a close as I want to get to a real worry, and a part of me is still holding out for the doctors at the big university hospital saying, Oh, that was a complete misreading of the MRI; you just need a little more physical therapy; how ridiculous to suggest you might be paralyzed if you ignore this.

To Be or Not to Be Public

     An acquaintance long ago told me that an artist is obligated to make his art public--not an altogether original comment, but one I often recall. I would never think to “make public” the self-portrait I painted of myself in high school, yet it hangs in our garage, and those who pass through see it—and sometimes comment on it. Definition 1C of “public” in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is “perceptible.” Definition 9 from the online World English Dictionary states, “a part or section of the community grouped because of a common interest, activity, etc: the racing public.” The Oxford Online Dictionary of British and World English, under Noun 1, reads, “(one's public) informal: the people who watch or are interested in an artist, writer, or performer,” and under the phrase “go public” states “in public, in view of other people.” The Oxford Dictionary of U.S. English, definition 2, reads “done, perceived, or existing in open view.” My painting, rather unbeknownst to me, is public.