Fire and Water

This post is not, as the title might imply, about what the ancients believed were the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. Nor is it any sort of incantation meant to bring about rejuvenation. Nor is it a metaphor for alcohol. Instead the title, Fire and Water, is much more literal.

This is a post about fear.

If you are thinking, that’s not literal, wait. You haven’t read it all yet.

When I was younger, I had a fear of fire. Let’s call it a healthy fear of fire, because fire can be bad for your health. I don’t know how young it began. There isn’t an inciting incident I can point to and say, yeah, that’s what did it. Or maybe there was, but it is buried deep in my subconscious. And I don’t have a submarine, so I can’t go there. (And given the weirdness of my dreams, I don’t think anyone would want to go there.)

It wasn’t a crippling fear. I could sit around a campfire with my fellow scouts or campers. But I didn’t love getting too close. I was perfectly okay with my marshmallows only slightly roasted. I never wanted to get them really into the fire so they could get warm and gooey and brown. A fire in the fireplace, that was great. Because there was a grate. Or a screen. Or some device that kept the fire inside and away from me.

But I was unable to have personal interactions with fire. The very idea freaked me out.

This is logical when you think about it: fire is dangerous. It destroys homes. It causes burns on people. It spreads across huge swaths of forested land every year. I’m not saying my fear was rational, but it had some justification.

I did get over that fear, because I had to. When I lived in New Jersey, I got a job at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City. I was a demon! Okay, I was a demonstrator, meaning I did science shows for the guests of the museum and at schools throughout the tri-state area. Demonstrator is a cool title, but demon, that’s dope. (Hoping I am using dope correctly. Also hoping if my children read this they roll their eyes at my attempt to use dope.)

This job required, as you might have guessed, personal interaction with fire. I had to use a propane torch to heat a pop can with a bit of water in it so I could turn the can upside down in a dish of water and watch air pressure crush the can. I had to submerge lit candles into aquariums filled with carbon dioxide so you could see them extinguished by the lack of oxygen. Most dangerous of all, I had to demonstrate the difference between a physical change—in which I ripped a piece of paper in two—and a chemical change—in which I took one of those remaining pieces and set it on fire with a match, then put it out with my bare hands. Why would anyone do that? Well, it demonstrates science. And it earns you some street cred.

Discovering that I could use fire, work with fire, befriend fire (that may be going too far, but at least we weren’t enemies) helped me overcome my fear. Or forced me to overcome it. It wasn’t like a helping hand offered in generous benevolence. It was do or do not. There is no try. There was no try? There will be no try? Whatever the correct verb tense should be, assume I used that.

Today, I experienced that sort of fear again. Though it wasn’t about fire. It was about water. Or at least it was related to water. I’m not afraid of water itself. I’m not avoiding toilets and showers and sinks. I can still have a drink when I’m thirsty. (I mean a drink of water. Of course, I could also drink juice. I don’t have a fear of juice either.)

One of the items that Alrica and I still own, living in the trunk of the car (or the boot since I am in Canada) is an inflatable two-man kayak. Today we inflated said kayak and we kayaked in said kayak. We were on Collins Bay. It’s a small bay shaped sort of like a dragon’s claw. It is on the northeast end of Lake Ontario.

Not saying it is an exact match, but there is a similarity!

 

We entered at a boat launch, I was in front, Alrica in back. And it was great. For about thirty seconds. And then it was not great. My legs were uncomfortable. Every time I moved to paddle, the boat wobbled too much. The bay was choppy and the wake of motorboats was unfun.

About a minute later, I was getting more concerned, and a couple minutes after that, I was freaking out.

That’s weird. Let’s think about why. (Note: when you are a compulsive overthinker, you can’t just accept you were afraid. You have to analyze it, nay, overanalyze it, even though the analysis will likely come to nothing, you know it will likely come to nothing, and yet, you cannot stop yourself from doing it. Those of you who are not overthinkers can probably understand this intellectually, but not on a visceral level. Those of you who are overthinkers are probably, this very minute, overthinking whether or not you are overthinkers. Sorry if I brought that about.)

Before I analyze why I was afraid, let’s first consider, why would it be weird that I was afraid?

• This isn’t my first time in this kayak or in kayaks in general. In fall of 2022, we took the kayak to Lake Tahoe and had a delightful time. And that was just the most recent of several such trips.
• There was no threat of drowning. I had on a life jacket and I know how to swim.
• I’m not a notably jumpy person. This is not to say I am fearless, but only that I am also not generally afraid.

Let’s get to the real analysis (which in my line of work usually means a course in which you relearn calculus but you rigorously prove all the theorems. But that’s not what I mean this time.) Why was I afraid this time?

• Alrica thinks maybe I am developing a fear of being in a small craft on such a large lake. I’m not sure I agree. Lake Ontario is huge, but Collins Bay is narrow. I could see the shore we left and the shore across from us the entire time. I could even see the tip of the dragon’s claw.
• There were more motorboats with more wake than I had been used to recently. That’s true. But why did that freak me out and whitewater rafting doesn’t?
• After we pulled out, Alrica realized we forgot to attach the keel. For any non-boaters, the keel is a fin shaped piece of plastic on the bottom of the boat. It sticks down into the water and keeps the boat from pitching from side to side as much. That’s because the water pushing on either side of the keel keeps it from moving side to side easily. That could have made a difference. Maybe we were rocking more than I was used to.
• I have a cord which I can attach to the back of my glasses so that they won’t fall off easily, but I forgot to bring it to Collins Bay with us. (I know I packed it, but honestly, I don’t remember where it is in our trunk full of goods. It must be somewhere. But I didn’t remember it until I was out on the water.) Maybe I was afraid of losing my glasses. That might seem a bit unlikely, but I definitely remember that I was thinking about the fact that I didn’t have the cord for my glasses when I started to feel panicked. So if not the whole cause, it could have been a contributing factor.
• There is no reason. Fear can be irrational, and sometimes it just pops up and there’s nothing you can do about it. I don’t like this reason. I like to believe that we are our brains, that we make our own decisions, that we have some semblance of control. You may think that is an illusion, but I am happier believing in the illusion. Don’t tell me how the magic is done!

So, once you have overthought the entire thing, what are you going to do then? For me, it would appear one of those things is to write a blog post about it. Does writing said post make me feel better? Eh. I wouldn’t say yes and I wouldn’t say no.

The other thing to do is get back on that horse. That isn’t literal like the title was. There were no horses involved in today’s kayak incident. We weren’t playing water polo. And yes, I know they don’t use horses in water polo. The horses would drown. They use hippocampi or hippocampuses. What’s the plural of hippocampus? (Here I refer to the hippocampus of mythology, not the part of our brain that helps us learn and remember and process the experience of fear. That hippocampus might have been involved today.)

So at some point I should go kayaking again. I can think scientifically. I can change one of the factors or all of the factors that might have caused my feelings of fear and see if that changes the situation. Of course, knowing that I should go kayaking soon and in action kayaking soon are not the same thing.

For right now, I am just happy to back on the firm earth. Ooh, that’s a third of ancient elements. Air, air, air? I’m breathing air! Now I can say this post was, in retrospect, about the elements and had nothing to do with fear.

I feel so much braver. Maybe denial is the fifth element.