I’m writing my inaugural post to you from the passenger seat of my 2013 Volkswagen Jetta—it’s white, in case you care, and it’s a 6-speed manual with a turbo boost, because I do. We’re making excellent time from Albuquerque, the location of this year’s Gay Romance Literary Retreat—’GRL’ is always the family reunion that fills me up and sends me off inspired for another year from the many spontaneous (and topically random) conversations I hold throughout the week.
This year I was in conversation with another writer and his husband, when the topic shifted to a shared fear: acrophobia. As a child I was hit hard with it—defined as “an extreme, or irrational fear of heights.” I’d quibble with Wikipedia on the ‘irrational fear’ part, but it’s not important. What was interesting, at least to me, were the number of times little anecdotes kept floating to mind. I’d pull them out to share, examples where my debilitating fear was a potential roadblock to an otherwise thrilling experience I’d been invited to share in.
There was the time I followed my roommate up into the tiny skydiving plane to keep her company—the side open to the sky (and the earth far below). I sat unsecured on the icy steel flooring, heart in my throat, watching her fall free, and a surprising piece of me surged forward, wanting to follow along behind.
Or the time I hopped an airliner to Central America unsure if anyone would be there to greet me when I landed… I nearly died twice that trip—at least in my head. In Tikal, I climbed the 164-foot Mayan temple, the last stage via steel ladders pinned to the side of the massive stone edifice. I can still feel the cold press of stone against the skin on my back as I tried to simultaneously keep as far away from the edge as possible, while gazing out upon an impossibly vast ocean of green stretching to infinity.
Backing down that steel ladder 150 feet above the jungle floor, is not a piece of cake I’d happily choke down again. Thank goodness for my friend, one hand on my ankle guiding my foot down a rung at a time. Friends are like that.
The second time I nearly, almost certainly, died on that trip, was on an illegal resort dive on a remote Bay Island in Honduras. Did you know that acrophobia translates perfectly underwater? It does! Surprise! You really notice it when the beautiful coral reef shelf drops out from under you. Instantly you’re dropping through the deepest blue water you’ve ever seen. This is nice especially if you’d like a pretty hereafter given your panic, which drops you to your watery grave below.
There are many other examples, buy me a dry gin martini (we’ll negotiate distilleries later) and I’ll give you the whole list… my point is throughout my life, circumstances have tossed me squarely into the jaws of the phobia lion stalking my nightmares. Time and time again, with each opportunity, I have to decide once more:
Will I? or Won’t I?
Will I sit in a sweaty room in Davis, California waiting for my friend to return triumphant and transcendent from her jump? Or will I don my own flight suit, climb aboard that tiny collection of aluminum scraps, feel the propeller sputter to life, and the engines vibrate as my heart threatens to shake me apart, until at the last moment I let go of my fear and really see for the first time the blue of the sky, the feel the wind on my face, and experience the singular moment when human and flight become one.
While I was brave enough to pull on the suit, maybe what I craved was to wrestle my courage, raise my hand, and claim my place when they asked how many parachutes were needed, as well?
Writing is like that. It’s terrifying to think one has anything to say. Or if we do, that the perfect phrase can be plucked from the cloudy grayness between our ears. Or if that goes well, can it possibly be interesting, entertaining, or compelling enough? And maybe it is—what then?
How far can you push away the fear? Will you send it off to an agent, a publisher, a reviewer? Your writer’s pulse pounds in your throat. Does it make your voice strong? Will you stand up and proudly yell ‘Yes! Look what I have created! Read my heart, I dare you to take your knives and dissect my soul! Or love me! It’s all the same. Because you have to be as brave to be loved, as you do to stand and take it when you are reviled.
It’s not just the authors challenging their fear. It’s the readers, as well.
The moment when you find one of us. When our words of love and acceptance stir something in your own hearts, you are changed. Will you try to understand a new perspective? Can you see the injustice of a world that rejects any love between individuals? When you realize what your own silence is costing, will you stand up, or deny?
Will you raise your hand and say— “I’ll take your parachute, I’ll join you on this journey. I will risk a little, so you will have more. I will believe in you, and you will also see me.”
Because when we do this together, we become greater than the sum of our parts—we become the masters of our own fear, we become a little more whole.
LE Franks
LE Franks is an author of Gay Romance fiction, living in the SF Bay Area surrounded by inspiration; and after years of ignoring the voices in her head, she’s now giving them free reign in the form of her characters.
Email: le.franks.books@gmail.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/LEFranksAuthor
What a wonderful and inspirational start on your inaugural blog post!
Thank you so much! I may have stumbled onto the right path—so much of writing is a walk through the unconscious mind, at least for me I’m never sure what will come spilling out next. 😉