When you think of fear, what do you think of?  Is it a memory—specific and concrete and unshakable—or is it an idea, a potential experience?

Much has been made in recent years of the positive aspects of fear.  When you’re afraid, when your heart beats faster, and your hair stands at your neck and you feel an odd chill, or a heightened response, you should trust these instincts because they are warning you that something is wrong.  Is our fear response always primitive, from our old brain, the one that knows that monsters live in the lake, in the basement, in the parking garage?

When Gavin was 10 weeks old, he began sleeping through the night.  I’d put him to bed at 7:30, and he’d sleep until 9 or 10 the next morning.  And without fail, I’d wake every morning afraid that he wouldn’t.  Terrified, certain, when I opened the door to his room I’d find a body.  Maybe I’d heard too many stories of crib death.  Or maybe my old brain was calling up an historical anxiety about infant mortality, or maybe I understood, with absolute clarity, the limits of my ability to protect my child.  Whenever I’d hear him croon in the morning, it felt like my chest broke open.

Yet, when I think of fear, I don’t think of those mornings.  I think of the Ozarks.  Bugs flitting on the water.  A pig on a spit—an entire pig!—and a red and black water disk.  I was a second grader, and I’d been sitting in the back of a boat with my friend, Brian, while his older brother water skied.  And then, we took turns on the water disk.  I had on one of those goofy orange life vests.  The disk had grip handles at the side, and whipped across the surface of the water with exhilarating momentum.  I shot off waves, and felt a pelt of fine spray.  I cornered and bounced and then the rope slackened and I let go.  The disk bobbed for a moment, then dipped with my weight.  I had to look for the boat.  It was a surprising distance away from me.  And then I heard shouts from the shore.  Several men were pushing toward me through the water, waving, pointing, shouting.  In the water, 5 meters from me, was a black snake.  A cottonmouth.  A poisonous water snake.  I knew it was a cottonmouth, and I knew it was poisonous, and I saw it was on a line to intercept me.  On a sinking disk, too far from the men swimming toward me, seven years old, too frightened even to cry out, and here came this snake.

I didn’t hear the boat.  Brian’s dad lifted me by my shoulders.  Everyone was talking.  The light around us seemed smoky.  I watched over the side as the snake cruised past.