Fearful Saturday

I recently blogged over at the Frozen Mammoth about the art project Montrealer Lalie Douglas is currently buried in. The premise is simple - people in Montreal and Calgary tell her stories of their fears, and then she asks other folks to take on the fears they can handle, (in the form of these tarot-type illustrated cards that she's drawn) to give the fear-bearer some respite from their worries.

The one I chose was the fear of losing everything you have. A good subject to ruminate on, the idea of loss, and loss of not just a moment, or a loved one, but everything. Am I really scared of this? I am supposed to become afraid of it in order to give whoever in Calgary truly is overwhelmed by the thought some soothing balm of some sort from la Belle Provence.

Part of me does worry about it, and part of me somehow feels exhilarated by the notion, a whiff of freedom and total re-birth attached to the ideas of being attached to absolutely nothing.

I guess for me the reason why it's more exciting to conceive of the fear of losing everything I have is surrounded in semantics, blanketed-up in the logics of the phrase. There is an inherent difference between the fear of losing everything I have and the fear of losing who I am. The one, I find liberating and hopeful, the other, rather terrifying. Or perhaps not. I'm working on it. We'll see what happens.