I saw in yesterday’s paper this picture of the new observation platform at the Sears Tower in Chicago. I read the article, took a closer look at the photo and found myself shaking my head back and forth: NO WAY, NEVER, NEIN, NOT ME.
I am not prone to phobias, and I don’t have a fear of heights. I have been to the tops of the Eiffel tower, the Empire State Building and the World Trade Tower. I looked out, I looked down. I didn’t feel afraid, dizzy or compelled to throw myself over the railing of any of them.
Now, I am going to admit to one phobia, however, and it is a strange one but I will also tell you where it came from. I do not like to look into empty swimming pools. It is more than a not liking; it is actually an avoidance of looking in them. Now I wouldn’t cause a scene if I had to look in one but if there is any way to avoid looking, I will so avoid.
Why? Many years ago our Girl Scout troop in Long Beach took swimming lessons at the YWCA pool, which was an indoor pool. Those kids who weren’t having lessons could sit in the balcony and watch their friends swim. Some time between then and when I grew to be an adult I had a dream that I was in the balcony there in the Y. People were allowed to jump from the balcony into the water. Dreams make those kinds of things possible, you know. Suddenly someone jumped off the balcony, and between the time they started their jump and the time they got down to the water, all the water disappeared down a hole and the person hit the pool floor. Hot blood splashed up and over my body. End of dream. You can rightly call that dream a nightmare.
The first time I can remember avoiding an empty pool was during Easter break when I was in college and was working as a camp counselor in the mountains. It was not yet warm enough outside to fill the pool, so I spent the whole week trying to avoid looking at it. There aren’t a lot of occasions in life to see empty pools but through the years the dread has always been there. When we lived in the Greenwood house in Orange we had to have the pool drained and replastered once. I forced myself to go walk around inside the empty pool, hoping to desensitize myself. I knew where the phobia came from and I knew it was irrational and I hoped to get over it. I was a big girl now and didn’t need to carry that little phobia around with me any more. The best I can say is that I made it out of the empty pool without an episode of the “screeming meemies” but I still don’t like them.
I thought of this when I found my head going back and forth – NO, NOT ME, NEIN, NEVER – as I read the newspaper about the glass-bottomed observation platform on the Sears Tower. On a scale of 1 to 10, my swimming pool phobia rates a small “1” when measured against how I feel about either the Sears Tower or, worse yet, the glass walkway out over the Grand Canyon. I can hardly write about it without shaking my head. It may be a phobia or it may just be a smart decision on my part not to tempt fate – fate being maybe a stress fracture of the glass the minute I walk out on it and down I’d go.
No way. I get the head-shaking heebie-jeebies just looking at the picture. Now THAT is a phobia.
2 comments:
I am not sure that I would want to do that either. I have a phobia of suffercating. I think that mine comes from a time when I was in high school and a friend put his hand over what he thought was just my mouth, but he had big hands, so he also blocked my nose from getting air too. So I was stuggling to breath and I was trying to tell him but he just wansn't "getting it.". I don't remember why or how he let go...maybe he finally looked into my eyes and saw the terror behind them. Needless to say, after that I sometimes find myself worried when in a situation that I could suffercate.
I think you mean "suffocate", Stacey. :)
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