We played hide-and-seek tonight at home.
The seeker had to count downstairs in the living room. The hiders hid upstairs.
There were a couple of lights on in the house.
My step-daughter is almost 8 years old.
At the same age, I had fear walking around our old house at night — dark, unused rooms, creaks and croaks from the tin-roof and elsewhere, cold areas that were blocked off from our limited heating.
And that’s not even mentioning our long backyard, the back of which had an old shed with an ominous shadow.
Turning my back on dark areas sent shivers down my spine.
This instinctual fear is actually healthy.
Reminds us we will die one day.
As an adult, walking around an empty house isn’t like that anymore.
My experience of hide-and-seek was probably drastically different to my step-daughter’s. She must have felt some apprehension creeping around — not knowing where we were or not knowing when one of us would find her.
Her feeling of aliveness must have been more enhanced than ours.
As adults, feeling physical fright is rare. But when it happens, our perspective gets refreshed.
For me, what taps into that is sitting alone in silence.
You could call it meditation. I prefer to call it being still.