The Only Thing To Fear
It’s late September, and stepping outside before sunrise no longer feels like stepping into a steam room, though I’m still stripped down to shorts and a sports bra.
I wait for my watch to measure my heart rate, to find a GPS signal. It chirps at me when it’s ready.
I run, and I think about being murdered.
***
When I think about it, all the bad things that could happen as I run through the city trails, I don’t feel especially panicked. The possibility, always catalogued somewhere in the back of my mind—along with things like a sudden heart attack, being hit by a car, falling and breaking my entire face—jostles along with me, sloshing in my brain with every step I take.
Stories like Eliza Fletcher’s bring the thoughts to the forefront, though.
I know women who don’t run when it’s dark. Who don’t without mace, a dog, another person. Who don’t run outside at all.
I don’t begrudge them or judge them; it would be wrong to say their fear is unwarranted. It’s very warranted. Completely warranted.
I know the risks, but I don’t feel the fear.
***
It’s 2016, and I’m in Vietnam, traveling by overnight bus from Halong Bay to Sapa. After many hours, we arrive at a bus stop, but my friend and I know we have longer still to go. Everyone else gets off, including the driver. No one says anything to my friend and I, so we stay put. The bus door closes.
Long minutes pass. We have no idea what’s going on. True to form, I’m mostly concerned about going to the bathroom. (Three days of a diet I’m unaccustomed to have caught up with me.) My friend figures out how to open the bus doors. I run inside the stop, use the bathroom, and get back on the bus.
We wait more. Finally, a man appears, and he motions us off the bus. He speaks no English, and we speak no Vietnamese, so sign language has to suffice. We follow him to another bus, where more men are moving our bags to the luggage compartment.
He gestures for us to get on the bus.
We have no way of confirming that this bus will take us to our desired destination; we have no way of knowing that it’s safe.
Yet, we don’t hesitate. We board it, and by five in the morning, we arrive in Sapa, safe and sound.
***
Why don’t I feel the fear?
Is it because I’ve never had a close encounter, never been in a situation that I felt was dangerous? Is it my finely-honed, painstakingly-curated nihilism? Is it hubris, a false sense of invincibility? Is it a naive, subconscious belief that if my “vibes” are good enough, only good things will come?
Maybe it’s all of the above.
***
Spiritual bypassing: A form of toxic positivity that tells us that, if we are “love and light,” our lives will be nothing but love and light. It’s big in New Age and holistic circles, but you can find it in Christianity, too—see prosperity gospel, or even the concept of being unironically “blessed.”
I think it’s true that the attitudes, beliefs, and emotions that we carry with us impact our lives, both on a mundane level (no one wants to hang with Debbie Downer) and (I hope) on a deeper, karmic level.
But you can’t manifest not being raped and murdered.
***
“You run alone? You run in the dark?”
Funny, how often these questions—questions that are really thinly-veiled scoldings—come mostly from other women. Mostly from older women. Women who won’t call themselves feminists. Women for Trump. Women invested in holding up the patriarchal system we live in.
The irony is: Even these women realize the inherent threat to womanhood. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t ask.
They don’t ask men these questions, after all. Men can run when they want, where they want, with who they want. (At least, they can if they’re white; the danger posed by white men is intersectional.)
***
Every time I step outside to run, I know that there is a possibility—however slim, however remote—that it could be the last time I do. That I could be the next Eliza Fletcher.
But danger is everywhere. Freak accidents. Natural disasters. Mass shooters. Kidnappers in the Target parking lot, if the rumors are to be believed. I could be killed driving in my car, I could be murdered in a bar. It’s like a fucked-up Dr. Seuss book.
Every second, there’s a chance I could die. What scares me isn’t the danger of my run; what scares me is thinking about what will be said if that slim, remote possibility comes to pass, and I am the next woman to be featured in the headlines.
She shouldn’t have gone out in the dark.
She shouldn’t have gone alone.
She should have brought mace.
She should have been more covered up.
She shouldn’t have posted any of her route.
She should have gone on a more familiar route.
She should have taken a different route.
I’m less afraid of something bad happening to me, and more afraid that I will be made to feel as though it is my fault.
The truth is: If a man wants to stalk, abduct, rape, or kill a woman badly enough, he will do it. He will do it, and he may be unsuccessful or brought to justice after the fact, but the women will still be the ones watching their backs. Looking over their shoulders. Staying on the alert.
Being scolded for what they could have done differently.