Backyard Monsters

Lately my dog Killer (a Minia­ture Daschund) awakes with a start at about 3:00 AM and runs through his dog­gie doors into the back­yard growl­ing. For about another hour, he sniffs around the inside and out­side of the house and looks like he has a royal case of the willies. When the sun comes up, I always expect to find dead mon­sters in the back­yard. From the way he growls, I am expect­ing to see at least one Tyran­nosaurus Rex lying dead behind the house.

I have noticed that Killer (a.k.a. Oscar, Knuck­le­head, Dog, Dog­ger, Crit­ter, Nut­case), does this right after a peak dream­ing cycle. In other words, I think it is all in his lit­tle head. I must admit, it unnerves me a bit. That is why I have ended up in the office by about 3:30 AM. I can’t go back to sleep. His mon­ster has become my mon­ster. When I walk across the street to the office, it is per­fectly peace­ful and calm. Killer is under his blan­ket — not even his nose show­ing. The blan­ket appar­ently keeps the mon­sters out.

We all have back­yard mon­sters. They are usu­ally gone by morn­ing, but some of them linger. Anx­i­eties have no face. They are just feel­ings of uncer­tain appre­hen­sion. Fears are spe­cific. We do much bet­ter with fears than anx­i­eties. Still, we wish we had nei­ther. Like Killer, our fears and anx­i­eties are mostly, if not entirely, imag­i­nary. We think that fear keeps us alert, when in fact if mostly just con­fuses us and drains our energies.

It is easy for peo­ple to be fear-based. Com­ing into the world as a vul­ner­a­ble child stays with us. Despite being midlife adults, the feel­ings of being small and weak some­times sur­face. As a child, we fear the dark. As an adult, we fear the dark­en­ing times. Let­ters from med­ical cen­ters give us the willies. We wait until the group of youths pass by our house before exit­ing. We did not used to do that. From whence arises such monsters?

Faith and courage have to be prac­ticed. They have to be expe­ri­enced to be strength­ened. Do one uncer­tain thing each day. Depart from your safe rou­tines reg­u­larly. Take some risks. Chase off your mon­sters. Recap­ture your own men­tal backyard.