What Are You Afraid Of?

Sitting here this evening, listening to Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns (you must listen to the entire danse if you haven’t already), thinking about Halloween coming up, thinking of all the boring scary movies I’ve tried to watch, and I wonder — what are you afraid of?

I don’t mean DEATH or Dismemberment or Alzheimer’s — those topics are scary on the sunniest of days. Or blood and guts. That’s a given.

I mean spooky-wise. Creepy-wise. 

As I’ve told you before, I live on 14 acres, some of which are natural fields, a spot in the middle that is cleared, then woods in the back. There is a trail that goes through the woods to the back gate/fence. It is a beautiful walk in the daylight … it’s safe and not very long.

I will not walk that path down to the gate at night.

During the day it looks like Ireland. At night it looks like the Haunted Woods From Hell. There’s no telling who or what is hiding right off the side of the trail. Uh huh, no way. Nope.

I also am afraid of spiders. Not really afraid — just creeped out. It is 1/1000 my size, and I scream when one crawls on  me. Flingomatic — I don’t kill them, but I do have one hell of a flicker finger or stand-up-and-shake move. They are nature’s helpers. They spin awesome webs. An artist couldn’t do better. Just not on my person.

I also don’t like walking around in the dark. The dark is atmospheric. Comforting. Quiet. Maybe it’s just that I can’t see well at night. More likely it’s that I watch too many scary movies. Just tonight I watched the second chapter of The Haunting of Bly Manor, and the au pair is playing hide and seek in a huge mansion with two creepy little kids — in the dark.

Are they fudging nuts?

Despite the fact that this is supposed to be a spooky, haunted series, who in their right mind plays hide and seek in the dark in a big, huge house? Especially one that has a wing that no one is supposed to go into?  I wouldn’t like to play hide and seek in my own house in the dark.

On a lighter, spooky note, I am fascinated by creepy art and artists. Not ones who show ripped open insides and mangled bodies. Ick. I mean artists who really know what scares us. Anton Seminov instantly comes to mind. Delightfully creepy. The abandoned places photography of Christian Richter are haunting as well. Or how about the weirdness of Colin Batty? His “postcards” are enough to give anyone nightmares. 

I don’t mean to get you thinking about scary things before you go to bed. Do check out the artists in my Gallery, and feel free to share new ones I can add.

But, for real. 

What would you do if, one sunny, beautiful afternoon, you looked out in the distance and saw a spider the size of a football field crawl over the houses in the distance coming directly at you?

I shudder to think ……