Thanks to Gevalia

It must have been that large mug of Gevalia Dark Roast at 3:00 p.m. yesterday that did it. I was so wired last night that I couldn't drift off to sleep. Somewhere around midnight, I began thinking about what I had written yesterday about fear. That emotion has characterized so much of my life.

Growing up in rural western Pennsylvania and the youngest of six children by many years, I spent much of my time alone. It amazes me now to think of the things I did routinely that I would never allow my children to do now. Either my parents had blind faith in the universe, or they were just too overworked and tired to worry that much about my activities. One of my favorite things to do as a little girl of eight or nine was to walk the railroad tracks, sometimes with my elder sister and cousin (when they deemed me acceptable company) or most often by myself. One section of the tracks traveled over a bridge, if you could call it that. The water far below glimmered through the gaps between the trestles, and I don't really remember any rails along the sides. Walking the length of the bridge seemed to take an eternity, and I was always sure I could hear a train whistle somewhere in the distance. I wrestled with both the fear of loosing my footing while hurriedly stepping from one trestle to the next and the fear of moving too slowly. By the time I reached the end of the bridge, looking over my shoulder along the way, I was convinced that I had just barely escaped death by speeding locomotive, even if there wasn't a train for miles. The fear I experienced on the bridge wasn't the disabling kind I've slogged through so many times since. It was exhilerating, challenging me to do something that may have been foolhardy, but that also resulted in a bolstering of my confidence once I completed the task. There's a quilt in those train trestles...