fear revisited

I am not a fan of heights. The roof of my own single-story 1952 house is higher than I want to go. Back at the beginning of July, however, I climbed a fire tower.

Standing 100 feet tall on top of Caribou Mountain, the tower rises 400 feet above the town of Temagami  and 1300 feet above sea level. I know there are much higher towers and heights to be scaled but this particular tower was my Mt. Everest. And I did it. Twice.

My son was out east at my brother's house when I first climbed it with my boyfriend, his 9-year-old daughter, and her friend. When I was talking to my son on the phone and told him what I wanted to do (and how nervous I was) he first said, "Don't do it if you don't want to," and then, "I could climb that tower!" So today the four of us climbed it again.

I had been almost pleasantly surprised (apart from the height thing) the first time I did it that it wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. It was still high and still very unsettling for me but I noticed that I felt somewhat secure with the stairway so relatively narrow and despite being open, having a feeling of being contained.

It's not something I'd want to do every weekend but maybe now I can remind myself that since I've climbed a fire tower twice, climbing onto a roof might not be so bad. Maybe.