Crab-Crawling Sideways

Blue diamonds shimmered from the ocean’s surface, so bright was the early morning sun.

The warming sand soon became warming rock beneath our flip-flopped feet.  Traipsing along the shallow tide pools pocketed below the cliffside, many a crab did scramble – sideways, hurried and nervous.

I was nervous, too.

My two companions led the way, walking upon the outstretched rocks, which within minutes would veer to the right and spill onto a landscape usually out of sight from any beach walkers behind us.

This was a route I’ve hiked before, but I remembered the mental struggle.  The wide flat slab of gray rock jettisoned out into the crashy blue as the rising sun dried up the last roll of tide.

The out-of-sight part was where my buried fear began to roll beneath. Trepidation and why-did-I-say-yes-to-this thoughts churned in the back of my mind.

I remembered this place. This place of panic. The rocky flats stretched out ahead. The jagged cliffs roughly carved by the onshore winds from the Pacific rose sharply to our right, and blocked out the sky.  At eye level, about 20 meters ahead towards the sapphire sea, a few local fisherman tossed their lines from clifftops while others prowled for lobsters. The white spray of waves smashed the cliffs below their feet. Straight ahead awaited the part of the path I had feared.

Actually, it was three parts I feared.

The first call for bravery was when we had to cross a ravine. The cliff edge offered the only passageway: by pressing our bodies to the rock face, hugging tight, and grasping natural rock handles for balance. Edging sideways crab-like, placing our feet on the slippery rock holds, the ravine fell below, the chaotic crashing tide rolling in at the base.

Treacherous, yes, but not for long if one just continued with the crab-like side-stepping in the same direction.

However, my mind rolled in the “treacherous” chasm longer than it should have.  And I let it. Also crab-like, I scrambled sideways towards my walking companions, then sideways back again to safety, nervous and hurried.

The two ahead of me – both septuagenarians- encouraged and coached me from the safety they had found across the ravine. I’d like to say it was ten feet wide, but maybe it only spanned three feet. Definitely no less than two feet.  But the height, the drop, and the vast space around me freaked me out.

Things we fear often aren’t real, but fear itself is as real as we make it.

Our fear is relative and often unfair. I believe the more we work at something, the less fear we have. I haven’t pushed myself past fear in a long time.

I also haven’t written in a long time, although it wasn’t fear that barricaded my fingers from the keys. It was exhaustion.

Exhaustion and the lack of inspiration.  I did not feel inspired to write the past six months and was too exhausted to seek it.

Mental and physical exhaustion from a heavy workload struck first. Then second, because of emotional exhaustion.  The holidays and turn of the year delivered heavy sadnesses and suffering that seemed insurmountable for my loved ones and impossible not to let consume my thoughts with worry and prayer.

Life kicks you down that way sometimes.  If it’s not us being kicked, it’s someone we love that we can’t help in ways we wish we could. And that’s a different heavy to feel.

Probably, writing would have helped. But I stubbornly resisted and crab-crawled back to safely reading Dean Koontz novels and binge-ing Yellowstone on Netflix.

But writing and hiking are alike in that the more you commit and follow through, the less you fear the fallout (fall). Confidence doesn’t slide down the cliffside but instead finds its footing, and on you go. Filling pages and clamboring forward.

Back on that sun-bright cliff ledge, sideways crossing over a drop that likely wouldn’t have killed me but definitely would have bruised and broken things. Things like my dignity and my iPhone.

After crab-crawl attempt #4, I made it to safety on the other side (shaking) before realizing the second challenge was immediate. It meant I’d have to scramble straight down a narrow cliff face in a ravine, the roaring ocean filling the endless air space above the rocks.

My two fearless leaders showed me how to accomplish this, using arm strength to balance and hoist ourselves straight down alongside the weather and ocean-shaped cliff face. It involved trusting the rock behind us to hold firm while extending one leg to stretch farther than is comfortable to the boulder waiting patiently below.

I nearly bailed again – the lack of self-confidence taking hold where my solid foothold should have been.

How I have faced my fear in the past, I know not.  I’ve zip-lined over jungle treetops in three countries, I’ve boarded down the sides of volcanos in Nicaragua, I’ve leapt from planes in Southern California, and I’ve bungee-jumped the highest bridge bungee in South Africa.

I may have cried almost every time, to be honest, but I still accomplished these feats, leaving fear to linger on the bridges, platforms, and planes behind.

Waves crashed foamy plumes in the distance.  Crabs hurried to their crevices, suffering their own form of panic and terror. Friends encouraged and coaxed, and after more minutes than I’ll admit, down I scrambled without a scratch. Easy, once it was over.

Why do we fear the things we’ve done and things we know we can do?

Sure, there was an element of danger, but danger often lurks wherever we look for it. I could have seen opportunity amongst the rock walls and the unmoving strength in those boulders, but instead, my eyes scanned the gaps in the rock and the vast openness of air around and I feared the spaces that couldn’t hold me.  I was my own worst enemy.

The third challenge was the easiest – a light leap or a crawl over a narrow ravine. (Ok, fine. There were no “ravines” on this hike at all.  Just wide gaps with steep, dramatic drops and no railing). The emotions evoked were still heart-palpitatingly real.

Ironically, it was the memory of this specific chasm that I remembered fearing.  I did not remember the sideways crab climb along the rock wall or the scramble down a vertical ledge, which spawned more terror in me this time around. The place I feared the most had become the simplest to maneuver.

On solid ground again, we were off! Rounding the headland, the flat rocks opened up to an empty bay. A bay hugged in by dunes topped with jungle on one side, the ocean a sparkling infinite beauty in the sunlight on the other, rolling softly over the brown sugar sand in between.

The remainder of the hike, four miles that shifted from coastal sunshine into shaded hilly jungle, felt more joyful than calculating. We exchanged travel stories and silly jokes, letting nature and inspiration do its trick, as butterflies fluttered calm and distant monkeys howled inspiration.

And just like that, the inspiration to start writing again returned.

These past six months, I’d dropped my morning journalling.  A writer who wasn’t writing much.  Someone who used to live outside her comfort zone sitting comfortably with her pets on the porch instead.

To be gentle here, and kind to myself and to anyone who self judges a little too harshly, I think we all just need some time to rest.

Time to recover, but just as importantly to recalibrate. To rest from whatever upended our progress and presented some vast chasm we just didn’t have the confidence or energy to jump.

Time to measure the path ahead before tumbling forward into the next year and what adventures it may bring.

Some days, we may just barely make it through, crab crawling sideways over crags if we must.

But other days, we’ll for sure leap over those fearful chasms without a quiver and carry on forward in a brilliant ocean-spray of sunlight.

– Christy

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