Yesterday I noticed a light bulb needed replacing in a ceiling light fixture. This is easy to do. You get on a step-stool, unscrew the cap holding the glass cover, and you know the rest. In my case, I have to do this on the sly, telling nobody. That’s because my children have insisted that I never get on a ladder or a step-stool again for the rest of my life. I told them I would comply with their request, but I had my fingers crossed behind my back. What I really won’t do any more is stand on the kitchen countertop in order to wash the top shelves of my ceiling-high cupboards. I’ve had a fear of heights as long as I can remember. Nonetheless, kitchen shelves should be washed once every 5-10 years whether they need it or not. So a few years ago I took off my shoes and climbed onto the 10-12 inches of free space between the wall-mounted cupboard and the edge of the tiled countertop, intending to scrub my way to the ceiling. Just then a truck drove by, which caused my stick house to tremble slightly. Stick houses are what realtors call wood frame houses in my area. Stick houses usually survive earthquakes better than reinforced brick houses because they tend to sway and not crack in half. My current stick house happens to sit upon very fluid soil strata placed directly over a secondary fault line. This is not as dangerous as it sounds. Every house in Southern California sits atop one fault line or another. However, it does mean that when heavy trucks drive by, my visitors sit up in alarm and ask if we’ve just had an earthquake. So here I am, standing on the countertop, gazing at the opposite wall of my gallery style kitchen, when I realized that if a sharp jolt tossed me off my perch, there would not be enough space to fall directly onto the floor and die. I would first be pitched into the opposing cupboards, break my head open on the cooktop, and then ricochet onto the floor. Either way, my odds of survival were slim. I did what any well-trained housekeeper would do. I finished emptying the cupboard contents, swabbed down the shelf paper, replaced the contents, and then crossed over to the other side of sink where, if pitched off, I would hit the refrigerator instead of the cooktop. After these herculean efforts, I told my daughter the next time I scrub the kitchen shelves, I’ll bring in a tall ladder rather than stand on the countertop, because apparently I’m too old to do that anymore. She took issue with the idea of me standing on anything higher than sea level. I promised her I’d be careful. I’d been careful with the ladder ever since a few months prior when I was pruning some defiant vines. The thing is, when you are standing on a ladder, pulling on tangled vines with all your might, if the vines suddenly give way you often find you’re no longer on the ladder, you are flying backwards with a fist full of foliage. This did not reassure her. She did not want to have to send one of the cousins over to find out why I wasn’t answering my phone, only to discover my body wedged between the shed and the back yard fence. Her argument was cogent. I agreed and kept my promise until the next ceiling light bulb went out. Every time I replace a ceiling fixture light bulb, air filter, or smoke detector battery, my legs tremble in terror. I look up as little as possible and get the job done by sheer grit. As soon as I return to terra firma, I congratulate myself with some chocolate. I do not tell anyone. Sometimes a greater fear can prevail over a lesser one. Here’s how I learned that. My son was three years old. We were living in Escondido, but on this day I’d taken him to play with a friend in Valley Center, a hilly shrub-covered outback where houses were few and far apart. His playmate was a little girl a few months younger. Her mother, a very pregnant friend, and I made the mistake of leaving them to play in the sandbox while we stepped inside the house. In the midst of our chatter, we realized it was too quiet outside. Looking out the window, we saw the sandbox but no children. Of course, we hurried outside to locate them. We called, we shouted, we scoured the grounds, and then we panicked. Jumping into a car, we zoomed up and down the neighboring hills, yelling out the window in our desperation. Then the little girl’s mother screamed, “The waterfall!” I was unfamiliar with the terrain but she knew there were tunnels worn through the shrubs by the creatures who dwelt there. Several of them led to a waterfall that was just high enough to kill any children unwise enough to peer over the edge and lose their balance. Peddle to the floor, we sped downhill to a dirt access road that was closest to the waterfall. The area was enclosed by a tall chain link fence. We leaped out of the car and ran down toward the fence. The pregnant lady slipped on the loose dirt and fell on her stomach. We left her to fend for herself; our children’s lives were in grave peril. Without knowing what I was doing, I scaled the fence with the other mother, dropped to the ground, and shouted our children’s names. To our relief, we heard a reply. We kept yelling “Where are you” as they replied “We’re here.” With each iteration, their voices grew louder. Then my son popped out from an opening in the brush, followed by his playmate, full of happy smiles. They had discovered the warren of shrub tunnels and had gone exploring. They had indeed reached the waterfall, took a peek, and then returned by a different route. Call it divine intervention, good karma, fate, whatever you want. The fact that we arrived where we did, when we did, and the children followed the sound of our voices toward us rather than wandering off to lord knows where…that was the second miracle. The first miracle was that I’d leaped over a fence taller than my head in my frantic rush to save my child. The second miracle was that we found them and they were safe. The third miracle was that the pregnant lady suffered no damage to baby or to herself other than bloody palms and knees. Miracle number four was much more difficult to achieve. Walking back up the slope to the car, we came to the chain link fence, only now we were on the down side and it looked much higher than it did before. Further, my adrenaline had dropped from Superwoman to its normal cowardly level. There was no way I was going to be able to climb that fence. The children had it easy. Some animal had dug a pit under the fence just deep enough for three-year olds to crawl through. The other mother had no fear; she climbed over like a Mount Everest champ. That left me on the wrong side of the fence, debating whether I could make myself small enough to fit under the crawl space. Not a chance. Then I suggested they save themselves and abandon me to the wilds of Valley Center. Nope. There was no other option than to make a slow, trembling, fearful climb upwards toward the heavens. Arriving at the top was worst of all. This chain link fence was designed to keep people out. The jagged ends of the links pointed skyward, daring trespassers to become impaled, which I managed to do. There I sat, pinioned to the links, swaying like a drunken lady on one of those motorized bucking broncos, debating whether to extricate myself or just leave my remains there as a warning to fellow travelers. Humiliation and the desire to raise my children prevailed. Somehow, I freed my torn pants and dropped down to the other side. No one died that day, which was a very good thing. I experienced first hand the autonomic response to danger that enables women to lift cars or do other feats of magic. I learned that sometimes I can be brave instead of cowardly, as long as I don’t have too much time to consider the odds. I also discovered that once the danger is passed, I revert to my natural state, which includes a healthy fear of heights.