Attached like fire escape stairs to the sides of a red brick tenement, the way up the cliff-face Maiji Mountain Grottoes rose up, threatening, impossibly high for someone like me who is deathly afraid of heights. From Wikipedia, “Acrophobia (from the Greek: ἄκρον, ákron , meaning ‘peak, summit, edge’ and φόβος, phóbos, ‘fear’) is an extreme or irrational fear of heights, especially when one is not particularly high up.” For me, unfortunately, anything above the height of a one-story roof was high up. Heights provoke a sickening panic in me. The higher I go, the slower my movements, until I become glacial, frozen in fear, too agitated to go either up or down. Once in Switzerland I took a cable car ride up a mountain, terrified all the way up that the cable would snap, and then, once at the top, was crawling around on all fours afraid that I would fall off the face of the Earth. I am having to breathe deep right now just at the memory of it. And here I was intending to climb up a steep cliff-face on glorified fire escape stairs. Why? Because I’ve spent my life trying to overcome fear: the fear I was born with; the fear I was given; the fear that I grew. I’ve spent so much of my life in fear, but lately I am on my way to becoming fearless. How? I have stopped creating phantom future fears, and stopped living in the past where fear and mistakes you’ve made cripple and control you, escaping into the present where everything lives, judgment dies, and there is actually an absence of fear. Still, at the base of this mountain, innate fear awakens. I stood there thinking about the monks who created these caves and sculptures and murals, dangling on hand-woven ropes, lowering themselves down the cliffs, powered by the act of creating and the glory they felt, and I brace myself, swear at myself, spit for luck and begin the climb. At the top of the first set of stairs, I pause thinking it’s not too late to turn around. I look up at the mountain with all those flimsy-looking stairs and groan out loud. I am suspended between my own will and my own cowardice. Already, my breath is coming in gulps. Fear sweat, beads—I am turning glacial in the summer heat. Then, in English, I hear—where you from? Standing there, wearing a wonderful flamingo-colored straw hat, is a Chinese woman speaking wonderfully fluent English. I gaze at her out of my fear cloud and she is telling me in a rush about her sister who lives in California and that she is traveling with her workmates on a month-long vacation, and isn’t this place great and where was I from and where have I been? Not even pausing to hear my answer, she ushered me upward. The force of her energy overpowered any reluctance and drew me up the stairs. She said her English name was Wendy, and the only other Wendy I knew was in Costa Rica, part of the family I had been adopted into, and I was struck by the warmth and confidence this aroused in me, as if I had somehow made a connection with those who would always look out for me. Wendy moved relentlessly upward. At some point I told her of my fear of heights, and while she didn’t understand it because she had absolutely zero fear of heights, she patiently waited for me as I periodically gripped the railing in a death grip, waiting for my panic to subside while trying hard not to look down. To distract me, she introduced me to her friends as we bumped into them on the way up. Also, another encouraging presence was the man who had joined me and given up his seat on the bus to the grotto, along with his wife, who keep waving and smiling and offering additional support. It was as if I was given shelter as we made our way up the mountain. The invisible monks laughed and sang gently mocking songs of myself. But Wendy was the true hero. She was a great conversationalist and knew that that was the best way to distract me from my fear. She knew if I was talking, I wasn’t fearing. We talked all the way up the mountain. On the way down, a sudden wind squall spiraled and I thought it would blow us all off the mountain. Curiously, I didn’t care because the mountain had shared its peace, there was a kind of tranquility in the wind chaos, and maybe the joy that pollen feels. Maybe this will not seem like a miracle to you but it was to me: suddenly, I gave up my fear. I looked down, I looked up, I looked out at the sweet green of the nearby hills and the lavender of the far hills. I thought that owls are the wondering souls of the dead, that the universe has no limitations so why do we limit ourselves, that a child sees wonder where we see the worn, and that we are all miracles of our own creation. I know . . . I know what you’re thinking. We got down without fear. At the bottom we looked up in awe. I took a picture of Wendy, the angel who had guided me. Below is a photo of her; see the wings? We met up with her group and I said goodbye, and it seemed that most of them were surprised at the bond we had formed as most laowai (foreigners) are indecipherable, or unpredictable at best, yet here I was, not overtly carnivorous and aggressively grateful. Later on, I walked down the hill, took photos on a souvenir horse, and caught the bus back to town. The bus was full, so I grabbed a railing and stood. Then the bus attendant was shouting something and a mother pulled her child up into her lap, and I was motioned to the now empty seat. I smiled knowing the good you do always comes back, and back, and back. Somewhere out there, all the good you do is perpetually trying to find its way back. Part 3 of Tianshui, China: Climbing Maijishan Cliff-face Grotto will follow.
1 Comment
Mary
8/26/2014 11:06:09 pm
WOW!!! What a story and Wendy was a God send!! Love her Angel picture she did have wings. I too have the sickening height fear which I have been trying all my life to get rid of. Once at my lowest fearful time Barbie gave me this bible quote and it has helped me overcome my fears: = "2 Timothy 1:7 – For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." It really works too but I like your Angel Wendy in this case. How did you guys ever climb that stairway? Great pictures I felt that sickening feeling just looking at the picture. Can't wait for part 3!!!
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