By Alicia Berberich
It was the usual hot and muggy June night in Alabama when I woke up screaming, shaking my head wildly. Something was in my hair. My husband Gunnar worked on untangling it and out fell a huge cockroach. Now the roach was racing around our bed. I don’t know who was more upset: the bug or me. Finally, Gunnar got the creature on the floor and terminated it.
People often ask me what I like about growing up in San Francisco. As a child, you accept where you are. You want to be with your family. You don’t have other experiences to measure against.
It wasn’t until I lived in other places that I appreciated what San Francisco had to offer. Simple bugs. The worst bugs I encountered growing up there were spiders, but never larger than a silver dollar, which my older brother always took care of, and small black ants who tended to conglomerate in the kitchen which my parents handled.
One Fall day, I was walking down a lovely path in Birmingham, Alabama with my dog Erik. I suddenly felt a thump on my chest. I looked down to see a four-inch (not exaggerating) cockroach on my chest. Anyone around would have seen a very pregnant woman suddenly burst into a wild dance, flailing her arms around and screaming hysterically.
In the South, the funny thing is that they call these “flying cockroaches” Palmetto bugs as if giving them a fancy name will improve their reputation. These kinds of frontal attacks never happened to me in San Francisco.
Why it Matters
My husband likes the idea of adventure travel and camping. It’s not that those sorts of things don’t sound appealing in the brochures, but the reality is often different.
While traveling to Cebu, Philippines, on business, I encountered a huge, unknown horrific-looking bug in my bathtub when I had to dress for a business dinner. I had to put on my robe and walk to the next cabin where my boss and his wife were staying and ask if he could please come and take care of the unknown overwhelming beast in my tub. I was mortified to have to ask, but what was the alternative? There was no phone to call the front desk. They came to investigate, and his wife was as upset as I was when she saw it. Bob took care of it and once again I was glad to be born a woman and not have to deal with bugs.
Then I had kids of my own, and suddenly I had to be the brave one. I had to remove the spiders and deal with the ants. I had to pretend it was fine, they were just bugs and they were more scared of us than we were of them. We look like monsters to the bugs. I tried to convince my kids, but inside I was straining to hold it together. I couldn’t convince myself that I would be OK.
When we travel to France or Italy, we never encounter strange bugs. But Gunnar wants to go to South America and New Zealand. Sure, it sounds exciting, but what awaits in those nooks and crannies? He reminds me that I encourage my clients to get out of their comfort zone, but I prefer to do that by speaking from a stage or trying a new restaurant in San Francisco. My fear was becoming my straight jacket.
As a child, I watched old Tarzan movies and know about the red ants of Africa that eat everything in their path including humans. I saw The Tingler with Vincent Price and how he extracted the Tingler from that woman’s spine. Those movies left me seeking the comfort of what I know, which is the City by the Bay. Many people would love to travel to San Francisco, see Karl the fog, walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, drive down the crookedest street in the world, watch the sea lions wrestling by Pier 39. Why do I need to step out of my comfort zone into strange lands where unknown creatures await my arrival? I can’t even look at pictures of horrible bugs with ending up with them invading my dreams turning them into nightmares.
As I sat on the overnight train, returning from Koh Samui to Bangkok, I watched the cockroaches scamper along the floor, then along the windowsill, then on my lap. You know I didn’t handle that well. I woke up several people around me trying to get those bugs off of me. I was mad I hadn’t taken the better train or traveled during the day when they might not have been so active. I just wanted to go home.
More people are killed each year by coconuts falling out of trees than by shark attacks. Yes, thanks to Jaws, we fear shark attacks and don’t even think about those deadly coconuts. You never know where danger lurks. At least in San Francisco, I know the hidden dangers. The probability of me encountering an unknown bug is small. There are Great White Sharks in the water, but I don’t surf. I can mitigate my anxiety over the unknown by staying within the realm of what I know.
But the result is that life becomes predictable, 2-dimensional, it remains close to the mean, never allowing me to experience the intense highs and lows available. By putting up my boundaries to remain safe, I alleviate the possibility of the extraordinary. Because the extraordinary isn’t going to come within the domain of what I know. It comes in the experiences of the unknown, the unpredictable.
If I hadn’t moved to Birmingham, Alabama with Gunnar, I would never have met the great friends I have there or understood the warmth of the South (in so many ways). If I hadn’t gone to the Philippines, I wouldn’t understand the extremes of life there and the kindness that exists. If I hadn’t traveled to Thailand, I wouldn’t know that I am capable of adventures into the unknown.
Do I let a few small negative experiences with bugs derail a retirement of adventure and seeing the world? Do I let a few scary moments keep me from experiencing the awe that awaits in lands unknown to me? The wonderful people I can meet? The new stories I can write?
Guess it’s time to pack my bags and accept my husband’s offer to see what South America and New Zealand have to offer. New borders are waiting to be crossed as I expand my comfort zone beyond the bug boundary. But rest assured. I will be watching out for wayward coconuts.