May 30: Zuckerman's Swing, Fear, Fearful Fairy Tale

Mothers for miles around worried about Zuckerman's swing.  They feared some child would fall off.  But no child ever did.  Children almost always hang onto things tighter than their parents think they will.

Children are fearless.  Avery and Fern climb into their Uncle Zuckerman's hayloft and launch themselves into certain bodily harm on the barn's swing.  Yet, they embrace the danger.  They don't think about concussions or compound fractures or closed head injuries.  They think of the thrill of flying into the heavens and then back to earth.

As adults get older, they lose their sense of adventure.  Adults crave stability.  They want good jobs, healthy bank accounts, comfortable retirements.  I know, at my age, I wouldn't jump out of a perfectly good hayloft on a swing.  My health insurance isn't that good.  My idea of adventure now is drinking a regular Mountain Dew before bedtime.

Fear is something that creeps up on you.  As a kid, you believe everything is a playground.  As a teenager, you believe you're never going to die.  As a young adult, you believe the world is your oyster (pardon the cliche, please).  As an adult, you find out that you are really nothing special, and you fear the loss of love, job, income, home.  As an old person, you believe again that everything is a playground.  And then you die.

I'm in the fear stage of life, I think.  For instance, tonight, I fear that I will never write another good poem or publish another book.  That's just one of my fears.  I also fear that my son will grow up to be a bully.  That my daughter will choose to be an English major in college.  That mice will invade my house this summer.  Pick a fear card.  Any fear card.

Once upon a time, an accountant named Ernest lived in a village in the middle of the woods.  Nobody in the village had money.  They were too busy doing things like farming, logging, and getting small pox.  The villagers simply lived day-to-day.  No time for worry.

Ernest lived his life in fear.  He feared his bathrobe and his morning oatmeal.  He feared the king would increase the tax on horse manure.  He feared that nobody would ever embrace the concept of capitalism, and the entire kingdom would sink into a loving community where wealth was shared and healthcare was a right and not a privilege.

One night, Ernest went to bed in his cottage without blowing out his reading candle.  The candle tipped over while Ernest slept, setting the hay of his bed on fire.  Ernest awoke just in time to escape a fiery death, but his home burned to ashes.  Ernest had to move in with his brother, who sold horse manure as fertilizer.

Moral of the story:  fear is horse shit.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

Don't forget to blow tonight...