FEAR
The scorpion count in our Semana Santa beach house is into the double digits. Despite my White Knight’s initial attempts at flipping mattresses, shuffling furniture, and airing out cupboards, we still find one every day. I cringe every time I shake out a beach towel or move a trash bin. My breaking point arrives on one of those mommy mornings when I am expected to move from dead asleep to refereeing arguments and pouring milk, all with kindness and grace, in a matter of 60 seconds. I stumble into the hall to watch Blankie graze the top of a scorpion in the middle of the floor, with chubby toddler feet missing it by a centimeter or two. I drop a cup on the offending crustacean, and collapse on the bed close to tears, demanding of the still slumbering White Knight, “Go deal with this!”
The beach resort covers hundred of acres. I understand it includes multiple hotels, condos, a golf course, pools, and restaurants. The chemically-created neon blue of the pool is a beacon, pulling my eye away from the chaos that is in front of us. We are trying to drive off the beach on Easter Thursday, which, along with Good Friday, are national holidays in Costa Rica. For an American accustomed to 24/7 access to everything, what this means is close to unbelievable. Think no open grocery stores, no liquor (even in restaurants), no mall. Everyone, regardless of means, travels to the beach. Beaches are full of tents, sleeping bags, makeshift stoves, and baby pools, often at dangerously close proximity. There are people, cars, dogs, children everywhere. Surrounding us. It smells of fire, meat, trash, burnt plastic. That there is a bright white cement wall separating the beach resort from the local crowd is the exclamation point to what I already feel. I am in my shiny new car with my shiny white skin, yuppie beach tent, expensive car seats, encased in air conditioning. On the outside at least, I belong on the other side of that wall.
I am embarrassed to admit that I was afraid. Of the scorpions, and of the crowd. I could go on about the possible dangers or threats of either, but when I get to the bottom of it, it was just fear of what I didn’t understand. Lucky for me, I have my White Knight to help me with these issues. In his cadre of training is significant animal card knowledge from 1976, as such, he reassures me that these scorpions aren’t poisonous, their sting would only really, really hurt. “Just think of them as over sized wasps. They aren’t like the snakes we would probably find around here, those would be poisonous. But we probably won’t see any of those.”
OK, so maybe not a whole lot of help.
But the point is that I was afraid of the scorpions because I had no experience with them. I was afraid of the crowd because it was overwhelming. Or possibly because I was unable to buy a bottle of wine, but I digress. Generally speaking, my reaction to new situations is to feel afraid. Not wonder, not excitement; fear. Given my current living situation I am not sure if this makes me a brave girl or a masochist.
People often say to me that they couldn’t live with the bugs in the tropics, or joke that we live in Jurassic Park, what with all the cement walls and bars on the windows and barbed wire. I have wondered at times if what they are really saying is that they couldn’t live with the fear. There is a finer line here, with less of a buffer between what is understood and what is unknown. We walk every day on that white cement wall, between the beach resorts and the tents. I can only hope that whoever I am now, living here will break me of this habit of fear, so I can step off the wall on either side with enthusiasm and grace.