FEAR LESS

On New Year’s Day for the past three years, I resolved to chew my food mindfully, thirty times per mouthful. On January second for the past three years, I forgot and chomped mindlessly away. Forget it, I told myself. Resolutions don’t work. I’m not even sure I can change.

This New Year’s Day, my friend, Carole Anne, gave me a Glassybaby, a gorgeous, Seattle made, hand blown tea light holder. It’s a deep, intense yellow. “I was drawn to the color,” Carole Anne said. “And then I saw its name. It’s called ‘Fearless.’ I knew I had to get it for you.”

I love Glassybabys. But “Fearless”? Me?

I don’t feel fearless. I’m rewriting my novel, THE SHAME STONE. I’m cutting my subplots. I’m upping my antagonist’s nastiness. It’s daunting. THE SHAME STONE is peopled by southern blacks and whites in conflict and crisis and caring relationship, a prime target for folks who believe white girls have no business writing such things. Author Lauren Stefano says, “Give someone a book and they’ll read for a day. Teach someone how to write a book, and they’ll experience a lifetime of crippling self-doubt.”

Self doubt threatened to cripple me long before I became a writer. When I took the plunge into private practice twenty five years ago, I was so scared, I kept the book “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” in my car. I was so scared, I decided to write and present workshops on fear. As a writer, I fill my novel’s protagonist with fear. In one scene, Lissa’s boyfriend, Dixon, tells her to wear her yellow shirt to an occasion that terrifies her. “Yellow is the color of courage in Japan,” he says. The Glassbaby people must know that.

It took awhile, but I became a decent therapist. I gave helpful workshops. I published a memoir. I’m writing a book that shows a fearful woman showing courage. Carole Anne sees me as fearless. I have changed. I can change more.

I love this quote by Maya Angelou: “Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Invite one of them to stay.”

This year, every morning, I will light the tea light in my “Fearless” Glassybaby. As I watch its yellow glow, I resolve to Fear Less. I will Fear Less about the hours of work ahead and I will Fear Less about getting it wrong and I will Fear Less about what people think of me. I will invite Hope to stay. Hope to tell a great story. Hope to find the right publisher. Hope for making my characters engaging and real.

This year, I’ll finish THE SHAME STONE. Next year, I might tackle chewing my food.

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