I'm not much for phobias. It seems too psychological, and I don't like problems that reside largely in my brain.
I will admit to having been "toxiphobic" when I was a kid. I went on an OCD hand-washing spree, didn't like touching anything I thought might have been dirty, really didn't like chemicals. I honestly didn't get out of that until I got a cat and I knew that she was "dirty." She played outside and cleaned her fur with her tongue. Her paws had touched the kitty litter. But she was my cat and I loved her and I knew I couldn't stand to be around her if I thought she was dirty. So I performed some mental gymnastics and convinced myself she was, in fact, "clean." And once you ignore a glaring possible germ hotbed like that, everything else kind of fades. God made dirt and dirt don't hurt.
I still don't like chemicals.
So I knew that I was scared of heights, but never considered before that it might be a phobia, not until last night. Last night, I went on a stagehand tour of CY Stephens, our theater building that hosts all the larger shows in Ames. I'm going to be taking some shifts there, hopefully pick up stagehand skills. It's a pretty tall building. You stand on the stage and look up and there is row after row of drapes and pipes that can hold drapes and pipes holding lighting. Didn't bother me. Not until we got up to the top, to the spotlight room, then the catwalks in the ceiling. The ceiling wasn't too bad, as we were mostly hidden from the actual auditorium. But being on one of those little catwalks and looking down at the ceiling below you and knowing that all those boards are nailed in from the opposite direction, so if you fall, physics aren't going to be with you... The catwalk wasn't that skinny, but I was holding both bars on either side of me.
Then there was the uprigger position. Above the stage, above the pipes and the drapes, there is a mesh made of metal bars, the gap mostly too skinny to get a foot through. Mostly. Sitting there, there is also a gap over the edge, with a few bars of railing in the way. Am I top heavy, I wondered? Could I tumble over that? On another walkway, they manage the weights of all those things attached to those ropes. Sometimes stagehands climb up on the railing. It's next to a wall covered in ropes, but there isn't anything under those ropes. If a human fell, could they manage to catch themselves, I wonder. Sometimes the stagehands have to climb higher, to a bar behind the ropes. People would hand iron bricks up to balance the weights.
"What do you yell if you drop one?" I ask.
"'Heads.' As loud as you can. But you aren't going to drop one." His eyes are earnest.
"Oh, good," I reply.
They repeat many times that if we aren't comfortable, we don't have to do it. I don't know at what point I could ever be comfortable. Looking down that impossible distance to the stage below, my feet start tingling. My knuckles on the railing go white. Could I have acrophobia?
I've always defined phobia as a "crippling fear." Something beyond just uncomfortable, beyond afraid. To the point where you can't release that grip. Yes, I've always been afraid of heights. It's been more about the fear of falling from heights. Maybe that seems like a silly distinction, but it makes all the difference for me. For explanation, I am not afraid of roller coasters, or any other ride that goes high and fast. They lock me in so tight that if the system broke, I don't think I would ever get out. They'd have to jaws-of-life me or something. I know they have emergency releases and all that, but you get what I'm saying. I am not afraid of rock climbing when in a harness. I am really afraid of free climbing. I don't think I'd be afraid of sky diving. One of the hardest things I've done is jumped off a 45-foot cliff into water. That is entirely falling. I've fallen wrong before and gotten a horrible bruise. It can hurt. And it is so hard to make my brain, which is telling me all the reasons that stepping off a cliff is a horrible idea, to make it shut up, and just will my feet forward until there is no space left, and then that terrifying half-second where nothing is holding you up and the flat surface of the water is rushing at you...
It just occurred to me that either my dreams are trying to torture me or they have some sort of meaning... I have dreams of flying. But flying is never easy, it always takes effort, and mostly, I can't get off the ground. So I go to a tall building, or tree, or something, and I jump. I try to fly before I hit the ground. Maybe the meaning of my dreams is that if I just take a leap of faith and face my fears, I will end up flying...
Ok, that's too cheesy, even for dreams. Really, subconscious, I expected better.
If I can make myself jump off that cliff, maybe I don't have a crippling fear. But I'm wondering if I could ever be an uprigger.
Either way, I could go all Phantom of the Opera on this joint.
