Face Your Fears (with one eye closed if you have to)

I used to be afraid of a one-eyed dog.  I loved running towards the mountains until the day I bumped into him.  But he took the fun out of it.  I'd think about taking off on my favorite run and then I'd remember that he might be there waiting to greet me, or eat me, and I'd decide to run in the other direction.

Then one day I took a walk with Gemma, my 73-year old neighbor.  She still had her cane, but I'd given up my crutches months earlier.  She likes to head towards the mountains, too, and since she doesn't get out for walks very often anymore, I thought we should go wherever she wanted to go.

I decided not to mention the dog.  We just started walking.  He wasn't there every time that I passed, so I thought maybe we'd be lucky.  And besides, I had Gemma by my side.  She kills chickens with her bare hands.   She hangs rabbits in trees and skins them (after she's killed them with her bare hands).  So, I was pretty sure she wouldn't be afraid of a tiny little dog with one eye.

Our walks were filled with lessons.  They weren't English lessons.  They were cooking lessons and gardening lessons and life lessons.   On this walk she was telling me that she'd collected almost enough lumache to make dinner for two.  She thought we might see some while we were walking and she asked me to pick them up along the way.  Not like 'pick up some bread at the panificio' or 'pick up some salami at the marcelleria'.  She wanted me to 'pick up some slimy snails along the road' and carry them in my bare hands for the rest of the walk.  Sure Gemma, I thought.   If I see any, I'll pick them up.
 
She was in the middle of explaining the best place to find them when I saw One Eye.  He was in the same place as always, acting like the king of the road.   As we approached, he started barking and coming towards us.  I asked Gemma if she wanted to turn around and she looked at me like I was crazy.  She asked me if I knew this dog.  I said that I knew he was often right here and that he kept me from running towards the mountains.  That's when she told me that he wasn't always in the same place.  For years he's been going to the cafe every morning for a croissant.  And the cafe was in the other direction.   That meant I had to be afraid no matter what direction I ran.  One Eye could show up anywhere at anytime.

For Gemma, it was either facing One Eye, or going home.  So, we faced him.  And really, that's all it took.  Just facing him was enough to make him a little less scary.  He kept looking at us with his one eye, but he stopped coming towards us.  And when Gemma raised her cane, he took a few steps backward, and let us pass.  He growled a lot and I was a little nervous, but we kept on doing just what we wanted to do without letting a little fear ruin our day.

For some reason, as the weeks passed, I started to forget about One Eye.  I just stopped worrying about him.  I suppose I'd invented something else to worry about like "Are these really mosquito bites or do I have some deadly skin disease?"  That's all it takes for me.  As soon as I distract myself with a new fear, I forget about the old one.  And then if the old one creeps back in a little bit, you can be sure the deadly disease is just mosquito bites again.

It wasn't too long before I bumped into One Eye.  I wasn't ready to see him without Gemma by my side, but it happened.  I panicked.  I stopped running. I just stood there for a minute trying to decide what to do.  I didn't want to turn around.  I wasn't ready to go home.  I decided it was time to face him.  So, I picked up a stick (pretending to be Gemma with her cane), looked him straight in his only eye, and kept walking towards him.  And he backed up.  All I had to do was look at him, raise my stick (which I later realized was a limp twig and would have been useless as a weapon) and keep on walking.
 
It was that easy.  He didn't eat me like I was sure he was going to.  And I didn't have to crawl to a nearby house and ask them to call an ambulance to take me to the emergency room.  And I didn't have my leg amputated . In fact, I didn't even have the big scar that was going to keep me from wearing mini-skirts the rest of my life.  And fortunately, I didn't get rabies, either.  The only thing that happened is that I kept running.  I kept doing just what I wanted to do.  I didn't let my fear of a one-eyed, croissant-eating dog take me off course.