The Fear

It was my brother who taught me The Fear.

We learn lots of things from our families–guilt, humility, empathy, forgiveness. If we are lucky, these lessons stay with us into adulthood, weaved into our consciousness as positive personality traits that make us strong, sensitive, kind and productive people.

My childhood was full of valuable lessons. My mother taught me that all things pass, the good and the bad. “All good things must come to an end,” she would say as I argued for one more swim in the lake as the summer sky turned gray. “This too must pass,” she would whisper as I cried over the pain of the chicken pox, unrequited adolescent love.

My father taught me to believe in myself and to trust my instincts. “Don’t listen to people who tell you what you can’t do,” he would say, “only you can truly know what you are capable of.”

I was blessed with phenomenal parents, and at the age of 34, I still call on their wisdom. But it was my brother who taught me one of the most valuable life lessons. It was my brother who taught me The Fear.

When I was in middle school, he made up a game he called “Pressure Point Man.” It pretty much involved him waking me on weekend mornings by standing in the doorway of my room with his index finger poised in the air, raising his arm up and down while making a buzzing robot noise.

“I—T--’S P—R—E—SS--URE P-OIN--T M—AN,” he’d say in a deep drawn-out voice, lifting his arm up, “zzzzzzzzzz,” and down, “zzzzzzz.” Then he’d pounce on me and jam his index finger in-between the joints of my arms and legs until I sprang from the bed and ran for cover.

It didn’t take long before all he had to do was look at me and make the “zzzzzzzzz” noise or raise an index finger and bend it up, “chick chick,” and down, “chick chick,” and I’d start moving fast, an awkward pre-adolescent Pavlov’s dog.

As big brothers go, he wasn’t so bad. He had some redeeming qualities. He always gave it to me straight. “Nik,” he’d say, “Teenage boys are disgusting. Don’t trust them.” “Don’t eat the icicles off of the back porch.” “If you wear those shoes, people will think you’re a slut.”

And fear, he told me, only serves a purpose if there is something to be afraid of. “What are you scared of?, ” he’d ask, as I stood perched at the loading point of a terrifying roller coaster I was just tall enough on my tippy-toes to ride, or squirming in my seat before having to go onstage in front of hundreds of people in my puffy-sleeved, hideously pink “achievement” pageant dress. I would mutter something about breaking my legs, falling on my face, freezing and looking like an idiot. “That’s not going to happen,” he’d say. “Stop being a baby and do it.”

He was always pushing me into something outside of my comfort zone.

“Hey, Nik, get in the cabinet. I’ll spin you around on the Lazy Susan.”

“Okay,” I’d squeak out.

“Hey, Nik, let’s ride the snow sleds down the basement stairs.”

“Okay.”

“Hey, Nik, let’s try a black diamond sky trail next. I hear the moguls are the size of Volkswagens.”

“Okay.”

“Hey Nik, let’s go to Candlewood Lake and jump off of ‘Chicken Rock’.”

“Um, okay.”

I remember very clearly the pang of fear as I stood perched at the edge of the gnarled rock. I hesitated and felt his hands on my back pushing me out. “JUMP,” he yelled in my ear and my body reacted, catapulting itself over the long jagged edge, falling, flailing toward the dark rolling water, the splash and the rush of adrenalin as I sprang to the surface and filled my lungs with panicked gasps of air. This was what it felt like on the other side of The Fear–alive, confident and strong.

My brother hasn’t pushed me down the basement stairs on a sled in a long time. But what he taught me about fear has stayed with me. The pang of anxiety before a job interview, the last edits of a book manuscript before it goes to the printer–my naked thoughts and feelings, probable errors and all–imprinted in permanent ink for all to peruse.

Like most people, I am afraid of many things.

Often that familiar pang of fear inspires us to lock our doors at night; slow down and choose our words carefully with our bosses and our spouse; drive carefully on slippery windy roads–all helpful. Sometimes, what we really need is a ride around the Lazy Susan (watch your fingers!) The trick is to know the difference.

Just this fall, I was visiting my family in Connecticut. The cousins were all piled into one of their bedrooms watching Disney’s Toy Story. My sweet, pretty 22-year-old cousin turned to me with a crooked smile, raised her index finger and said, “Hey, Nik, remember when your brother use to do P—R—E—SS—URE P-OIN--T M—AN,” raising her index finger up, “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,” and down “zzzzzzzzzzzz.”

I studied her face, gauged the seriousness in her eyes, and took off running.

The Perfect “Ugliest” Pumpkin

As a little girl growing up in the country, Fall was my favorite time of year. The crispness in the air, the panorama of color emerging in the trees, it meant that it soon would be the season of spicy apple cider, cool damp piles of leaves to jump into and my favorite mother-daughter tradition, picking out the perfect pumpkin.

Each year, my mother and I would ride up the windy country road to the big white farmhouse on the hill where Farmer Whitehead and his wife laid out a disordered display of pumpkins in their front yard. Neighbors from all around would park their cars on the side of the road and pile into the yard to survey the display.

And each year, I vowed to myself that I would find the perfect pumpkin. I walked among the horde of pumpkin procurers as we carefully examined our choices, lifting each possibility carefully up by its bottom–never its stem–assessing its aesthetic attributes and carvability.

The pumpkin pickers scrutinized health, color, shape and stem stability, each choosing their version of perfection – tall and thin pumpkins with perfect one-inch apart grooves on blemish-free orange complexions; short, fat, round pumpkins with sturdy thick green stems. One by one they claimed their Fall bounties, left their payments in the cash box on the table and sauntered proudly to their cars.

Maybe it was because I was just a little bit overweight. Maybe it was because I hadn’t yet figured out how to tame my wild curly hair into a human-inspired shape. But, I always had slightly different criteria for the perfect pumpkin.

I appreciated the faultless oval-shaped gourds with symmetrical lines and curled stems reaching decorously upward, but it was the more than slightly imperfect pumpkins that always caught my eye, the unevenly shaped, bumpy textured gourds; the oddly colored brown, green and orange pumpkins with short stumpy stems that I picked over affectionately, carefully inspecting each of their imperfections to find the most unusual, most imperfect, ugliest pumpkin.

My mother and I would make our choices–a couple of pumpkins for carving, one or two to don the front porch. As I rode home, clutching my pumpkin in my lap, the colorful leaves blowing wildly around the country roads, each of them uniquely colored and shaped, I surveyed the beauty of my pumpkin in all its imperfections. Another perfect Fall. Another perfect pumpkin.