I came upon this quote by Ellen Hubbard the other day and it really captured my attention.  It said:  ”The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing that you will make one“.  Did that ever hit home with me!  I guess it’s a variation on what FDR said at his 1st inaugural:  ”The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  I’ve calmed myself with FDR’s words many times in my life.  I remember one very harsh day when I was living in Israel and I’d just been into Haifa to arrange a flight home for me and my son and daughter and I was sitting and waiting for the bus that would take me back up the serpentine road to Kibbutz Adamit.  Let me travel back a bit to those days and what the fear I was feeling that day was about and how it is perhaps still lingering with me from time to time.

I’d been living in California – where my 1st husband came from – in the early 1970s.  Following the attack on Israel in 1973 by its Arab neighbours, OPEC had imposed an embargo on oil shipments to the United States and other industrials nations.  I was pregnant with my 1st child at the time.  Because our license plate ended in an even number we were only allowed to buy gas on even-numbered days.  There were long, long lines to buy gas and it wasn’t uncommon to see a “No Gas” sign in front of a gas station.  And then the bumper stickers appeared; they said: “Save Oil, Not Jews“.  This was definitely something that turned my heart to ice; I was the child of holocaust survivors and I knew the history of events leading up to the holocaust, most significantly the Nuremberg Laws which began fairly innocuously in 1935 with an edict that forbid Jews to marry non-Jews.  There was no public outcry and from there the laws escalated – by 1939 – to the point where Jews had no rights at all and could be rounded up for killing.  It didn’t take us long to decide that we didn’t need more push than this to realize that perhaps southern California was no longer a good place for us to live.  We decided to move back to Israel – we’d met there a few years earlier when we were both studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem – and join a Kibbutz.  We took our four month old son and headed for Kibbutz Adamit, on the Israel/Lebanon border.  We lived there for almost a year, during which time two big events occurred; I gave birth to my second child – a daughter, Nili – and I decided that I needed to leave my husband and return to Canada.  That’s why I’d been in Haifa.  Sitting there at that bus stop, my tears and the raindrops mingling, shivering in the cold, I felt like I’d truly hit bottom; I was scared about how I’d raise kids on my own, I was sad to be leaving Israel and going back to London, Ontario.  I remember feeling like I was a total failure; my marriage, my immigration to Israel, my dreams of the future were evaporating.  Would I ever be successful at anything?  Would I ever make the right choices?  Was I doomed to a life of loneliness and despair?  As the rain continued falling and the wind blew I sat waiting for the bus, growing colder, wetter, and more afraid by the moment.

Fear.  It eats away at you little by little.  It starts with a focus on a specific thing and quickly becomes pervasive; everything seems overwhelming and all-consuming.  There have been other times in my life when I’ve experienced that kind of fear.  I was in Kosovo several times in 1999/2000; I was there with a team from the International Children’s Institute to see if (a) it was safe and possible to work there, and (b) to work with elementary schools in Prishtina, the capital, to develop what became a psychological first aid manual for educators working with children who have been traumatized by war.  On one of those trips we were driving in the countryside when we saw a group of people gathered about 100 feet from the road around some open mass graves.  Walking back from the grave we suddenly realized that we were in the middle of a mine-field that had not yet been cleared.  Needless to say, getting out of that one left me quivering with fear. Huddled in a cabin with my children listening to a category 2 hurricane rage all around us I had to pretend to be calm while fear raged inside me like an internal storm.  Sitting alone in the bowels of Toronto General Hospital while my mother had an emergency angioplasty I realized how very calm fear could make you; not wanting to look at the focus of the fear, a sort of shroud can fold you into its embrace and hold you still and quiet.

So why am I thinking and writing about fear?  I’ve started printing out the postings in the blog; I’m up to #91 (Daring to Dream a Dream) so far.  As I engage in this work of actually writing a book – something I’ve always wanted to do – I’m entering virgin territory.  Writing chapters for books and articles is second nature to me, but those are academic tomes and the whole process is, I think, quite different.   I know how to do research and write up the results.  Maybe that’s a good thing to remind myself.  In a way looking back over my thought processes as I navigated from being a professional to being a retiree is a lot like the sort of ethnographic studies I’m comfortable with; I guess that’s why I’m not so worried about the revising, editing, re-writing process that lies ahead.  But I don’t know anything about the work of publishing.  I don’t know any publishers.  So far I have found at least one friend (and muse) who will forward my completed proposal to a publisher he knows.  What if nobody wants to publish this?  What if it isn’t going to be helpful to anyone?  What if?  What if?  What if?

And then I found these words by Alan Cohen (best known as a contributing author to Chicken Soup for the Soul and also for writing The Dragon Doesn’t Live Here Anymore) who said:  “It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.” That’s better.  Courage I’ve got.  I’ve stared down fear before and I know I can do it again.  I’ve pushed myself – left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot – through 5 days of walking uphill at least 8 hours a day (and once for 29 hours straight) so that I could stand on the summit of Kilimanjaro.  I willingly faced 30 foot waves so that I could walk on the Antarctic Peninsula.  I’ve released the familiar and seemingly secure a number of times, from the end of unhappy marriages to retiring, and embracing the new is what makes me thrive.

So, as you’re reading this I’ve gone to Cancun with my daughter Nili and her three children (Art – who is 9, Noam – who is 6, and Freida who’ll celebrate her 1st birthday on the beach in Mexico).  Nili has the week off from her residency and so we’re heading south for some sunshine, warmth, and fun.  This is the first time since she’s been a Mom that we’ve gone on vacation together with just the two of us and all of the kids.  Wow, I just realized that Nili was the age of the boys when we did beach vacations in Florida over March break.  How great is that!

I’m going to leave the book – and all other concerns – behind as I immerse myself in the pure joy of being with my grandchildren for a whole week.  I’m not even taking a computer with me and my iPhone will have the week off too.  I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to call my mother every day but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.  Days of sunshine, with no objectives more taxing than having fun and getting a good suntan.  When I return, the kitchen renovation should be done and I’ll need a few days to get everything put away and art (the non-grandson variety) back on the walls.  Then I’ll dig into the book with joy and gusto and remember what Anthony Robbins – the strategist – says:

“Live life fully while you’re here.  Experience everything.  Take care of yourself and your friends.  Have fun, be crazy, be weird.  Go out and screw up!  You’re going to anyway, so you  might as well enjoy the process … Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human.”