Guest Post: Throwing Out Fear With the Angel Food Cake Pan

Rhonda Langley is a writer, musician, and teacher who lives with her husband and two boys in Portland, Oregon.

Image courtesy of cinderellasg via Creative Commons.

Today I’ll be playing violin at church. It’s a good thing my muscles aren’t too sore, because yesterday I got taken by spring fever and repainted our bathroom. I thought it would be easy. It’s a little room. But actually I think there should be a yoga move called “painting behind the toilet.”

When we moved in to our house five years ago all the walls were white. Not being the home improvement types, all the walls are still white five years later, only very dirty now. It’s beginning to weigh on my soul. So now the walls in the bathroom are harbor (I considered cathedral, running river, and magical evening, but decided to go with harbor).  One of my sons thinks their bedroom would look nice with a color called “the queen’s robes.” I think maybe we should go with iced mint. But after yesterday, I don’t think I want to paint another room at least for a while.

I was also taken yesterday with the desire to give all our possessions to Goodwill. This isn’t as surprising. I have this urge every now and then. The possessions weigh on my soul even more than the dirty walls. Why, for instance, do we have an angel food cake pan that belonged to Grandma Ollie before she died twenty years ago? We’ve never made angel food cake in all those years, and it was a beat up pan to begin with. Why do we still have the fish tank of our long-deceased pet beta, Minty? Why do I have socks in my drawer that I haven’t worn in four years?

It’s because of a kind of fear we all seem to have. Sure, we don’t use  those things very often. But what if we want them later? What if we give it away, and then wish we hadn’t? Our things make a sort of buffer between us and the world. It feels safe. If life throws the need for an angel food cake at you, well, you’re ready. You have that pan to pull from the back of your cabinet.

I’m becoming very aware of these fears that we live with, lately. There’s the fear of stepping outside the box, as well. I would like, for instance, to talk to the “One coin will help” lady whom I pass by on my way to work each morning. The desire has been growing in me. But in order to do that I’d have to park my car in the Wells Fargo lot, walk down the on ramp, past all those people in their cars waiting for the signal to change, and stand there with her beside the freeway. That’s just not something that people do. You drive past the cardboard sign people, averting your eyes. You don’t park, walk through traffic and stand there talking to them. And even more frightening, what on earth would I say? I have no idea. She’s had some different signs lately. One said that she needed size 5 diapers. I guess that means one of her children is a toddler. Another sign said they were waiting to get into a shelter. But she always goes back to the “One coin will help.” It’s even possible that her kids go to my school, since it is the closest school to her freeway on ramp. I’d like to know her name.

And maybe I’ll do it. I'd better decide quickly, because she could disappear from my life with no warning, and I’d never know what had happened to her.

And the angel food cake pan is history. I refuse to live in fear of being unprepared for the possible need of an angel food cake.



Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by guest posters are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute for Humane Education or its staff.

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