This week, in order to avoid the hideous roundabout
of death, I am negotiating a small corner of the countryside on my cycle to
work, but this means coming face to face with another, far worse, fear. At the
roundabout of death too many drivers fail to see me. Cycling across the fen,
it’s this invisibility I suddenly crave as the frisky gang of bullocks up ahead
snigger and snort to each other the minute they see me coming. They time their
moment perfectly to rampage gleefully across my path. I like to think my
pathetic scream was just inside my head. Friends and family laugh at me when
we’re out walking and I race ahead, refusing to dawdle and chat when crossing
fields of cattle, but these fears are very rational. Every time someone is
trampled horribly to death, I send a link of the story to those who scorn me.
Other fears I have are less rational, but equally
beast-sized in my imagination. Fear of flying. Fear of talking about myself.
Fear of being alone in the countryside. Fear of being told my writing is
rubbish. Fear of talking out loud in a group or of being trampled by
indifferent silence after doing a reading. I faced all of these in one intense
week when I travelled to the other end of the UK to the middle of absolutely
nowhere, 12 miles outside Inverness for a tutored writing retreat and some
quality time with my newish story. After leaving my house at 8.30 in
the morning, I made it to Moniack Mhor on a hot and sultry evening, just in time for
some very welcome pre-dinner drinks. I had survived the flight
– my first time flying without a companion – and had launched myself well and
truly out of my comfort zone. I smiled at the people around me, sipped my wine
and tried to ignore the creeping terror that there was no escape now from my
remaining fears. I had arrived and was stuck in the middle of nowhere with a
bunch of complete strangers. I'll let you know what happened in Part II.
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