Listen to Jim’s podcast:
http://redclaydiary.com/
or read his story below:
Squeezing Through the Dark and Narrow One-Way Dead-End Cave
I am squeezing my way on hands, knees and stomach through an unexplored North Alabama cave, following my high school science teacher and the fellow science-club students foolhardy enough to enter the bowels of a dark and crumbly place such as this.
It is six decades ago, and at this point I am wondering whether I will live to relate my spelunking experiences to future generations such as yours.
I am a nerdy geeky teen. Cave exploring sounds exciting in all these books I am reading, but the reality of what it takes to leap into darkness sans lifeline, holding tight a faltering flashlight, is beginning to impose itself upon my brain.
What if the kid behind me gets stuck? At one point, the passage is so narrow that each of us can only get through it by bending and twisting a special way. What if the teacher ahead of me suddenly panics and tries to back up rapidly? This is a one-way route. If we cannot arrive at a place where we can actually turn around, we may have to back up inch by inch for a hundred feet or so, becoming more claustrophobic and fearful by the minute.
What if a wild animal lives in the cave and decides it wants to get out, and fast?
What if my science teacher does not have a Plan?
I am beginning to feel the weight of the mountain above us. I am too inexperienced to know what a grand mal panic attack is like, but I feel its potential power welling up within.
A quote from Shakespeare pops into my brain—something a character I once played in a school stage drama said, ”Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.”
Onstage, this felt profound and noble, this special quote from long ago. But here, in the depths of a forgotten cave under a mountain in North Alabama of a Saturday morning, it is difficult to find courage. But try I must. It is the only thing I have, this utterance of old: “Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.”
This caving adventure sticks with me down the years, a great lesson in the possibilities of life and death and bravery and foolishness, a sobering dance with reality and fantasy. Being inside a book is a safe way to be foolhardy and reckless and still return home to love and safety and sweet memory.
Have I learned to be valiant instead of cowardly because of spelunking and Shakespeare?
No, but I have learned the ancient secret of all heroes and death defiers. Courageous talk only comes later, once the crisis has been survived. At the time of the actual events, all you can do is open yourself to the law of averages and try not to show your fear to others. In other words, acting brave is being brave, concealing your inner doubts inspires others to muddle through.
Acting valiant could save a life.
It’s natural to be a coward, but the valiant coward never lets you see the sweat, the fear.
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.”
Something worth holding onto when the battery in your flashlight no longer cooperates
© Jim Reed 2016 A.D.
http://www.jimreedbooks.com/podcast