The instinct to hide versus the pull of adventure

In an idle moment, memories of childhood wander into my mind. I think of some of the places where I felt happiest. Under one of the tables in the dining room, pretending I was on some quest, hiding from pursuers. Hidden inside my mounded duvet, doubling as a cave. In the glorious space under my grandmother's grand piano. In the half-concealed space between our garage and next door's, which the adults didn't really know existed and couldn't have squeezed into anyway. I was invariably in a fantasy world, one of the several epic stories that would be in my head at any one time, from which I would take a scene and embroider and inhabit it.

One of the golden days of my young childhood was a day spent in the overgrown wilderness of the garden of some family friends, constructing with their two children a complicated series of dens, hidden from the oblivious grown ups.

One of my favourite books was The World Around the Corner by Maurice Gee. It's an exciting and adventurous tale of an ordinary girl who finds a pair of magical glasses and suddenly gets tangled up in the battle of good versus evil. But the part I liked the best was at the beginning, the description of her nest among old mattresses from which she can look down on her father's junk shop and never be noticed.

Later, playing hide-and-seek with my young siblings, my favourite hiding place was in the cupboard under the stairs, behind the hanging layers of clothes and among the suitcases, enveloped in perfect pitch-black darkness and breathing musty air.

I did do normal things too. I played endless imaginary games in my garden, swung on my swing and hung upside-down from the climbing frame, made catapults out of forked sticks and sat in my treehouse (a plank in the fork of our one tree) reading for hours on end, but.... I like being hidden and I being in places no-one would think of thinking of. I like secretness. I have always liked hidden, enclosed places, places where I was out of sight and no-one would come for me, places that were physically snug and where I felt protected.

And I rather think that, as a adult (sort of), my apartment has taken the place of these physical and mental hidey-holes. In my apartment I can be perfectly alone and unobserved. I can lock the door and feel perfectly safe. I can absolutely exclude the outside world. I know I have to push myself out into the wonderful, perilous outside world and do things, but it is often so very, very tempting not to. Sometimes, I do not like these unasked-for psychological insights.

I had two or three exciting places to go planned for last weekend, but, partly because of other people but mostly because of my own tiredness and overwhelming unwillingness to go anywhere at all, I didn't go to any of them. I stayed at home instead, feeling content, almost relieved, and disappointed with myself at the same time.

It's not actual danger or bad things happening to me I'm fearful of. I'm fairly fearless about a lot of that. It's just people in general. Life.

On the other hand, when I was coaxed out at the weekend, only as far as the local town, I had my first really unsettling experience there, and frankly one of the more unsettling experiences I've had in Mexico. There follows a rather overinvolved and probably not very interesting story which may or may not involve a penis.

So I was walking along the road to the hamster-food shop, after lunch with a friend, my hand happened to brush against someone else's, as will sometimes happen on a busy street. No big deal, but I sneaked a glance to see what kind of owner this hand had. It was a young man, slightly but indefinably dodgy-looking, with a grubby dark-green Nike jacket and a bandaged hand. Slightly more embarassing than if it had been a woman, but these things happen. A few tens of yards later, I brush hands with someone again. I peep round. It's Nike Man again. A little bit weird, so I am glad to duck into the petshop.

I leave the shop and head back the way I came. Somehow he is there, walking the same way, just behind me.... but it could just be coincidence. As we reach the corner my slightly swinging hand somehow touches him again, which I am a bit freaked-out by. A moment later I process that what I touched seemed a bit too... bleh... soft... for a hand, and didn't have a bandage on it. At which point I am really quite freaked out and turn sharply to the right, towards the market, walking fast. Before I cross the road, I peer stand peering down the street. He is not there. I am relieved.

I cross, and enter the door to the main artery of the market. He is there, in front of me. He must have come down the other side of the street, which, stupidly, I wasn't even looking at (there goes my career as an international superspy). Behind his back, I bolt to the left (the market is laid out on a grid) and walk past delicate Christening favours and barbecued meat without seeing them. I turn back towards the main artery to cross it to get to my favourite fruit stall. And he is there again, coming back the other way as if he's looking for me. I'm not sure if he sees me. I carry on and buy fruit, being stubborn that way, but I leave the market by skirting the sides, looking behind me as I go.

I am not a girly girl. I tend to have too little fear in unknown situations and strange places rather than too much. Intellectually, I was not afraid. I didn't think he was likely to try anything in a busy, public place. I kept hold of my bag. I knew he was probably just a sad, disturbed creep. But... physiologically, I was afraid. My heart was beating fast. I was ready for fight or flight (flight, mostly). For an hour or so I keep looking over my shoulder. I resent that. I resent that vulnerability that is almost always dormant but can so easily be woken. And I resent those that would wake it, and a skewed, screwed cultural perception of manliness that condones them in doing so. (I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a small part of me - the part that thrives on danger - that enjoyed the drama of the chase. But that doesn't make it OK. We should have a right to choose our own danger.)

On the happy side, I soothed myself with a visit the glass factory, which is like a dusty, undisturbed chapel sacred to the beauty of glass, and which I find calming, peaceful, and revivifying. Walking up the long path home the evening was clear and golden, and a flock of brilliant white birds flew in the amphitheatre of air between me and the mountains. And I found a bright green shield bug.

This weekend, I have a proper adventure planned. Long overnight bus rides. Small towns. Wild parakeets. A mad surrealist folly to end all follies in the jungle. I really want to go, exploring unknown places, and spending some time peacefully by myself. But I also really want to stay at home and listen to Sherlock Holmes on BBC7 and pull the covers over my head (and get some work done, but that's another issue). Yesterday I wasn't feeling too well, and I was secretly glad to have an excuse not to go. But today I feel OK, and I realise that this is probably the last weekend I'll have to go before Christmas, and I do want to, very much. Wish me luck.