Explosions In The Sand
Whenever I get nervous I tend to get a strange feeling that immediately makes me think of P.E. at school. (The sports lesson with our teacher, the one who eventually retired to sell weight loss treatments ). More specifically, it is the moment when the boy in front of me steps away, running towards the long-jump, and I become the boy at the front of the queue. I’m nervous and shaking all over. Behind me I can hear the mocking chants of the boys who are good at the long jump. The more they mock me, the more the energy seems to seep out of my legs. Then the teacher says “Go!”
I run, or I try to. But all the time some weird force seems to drag at my arms and legs, trying to pull me back to the front of the line. This only goes away once I’m half-way down the runway, about ten metres or so from the wooden board which marks the place where the field stops and the sand-pit begins.
Hitting the board sets me free. As soon as I’m hurtling through the air (I use ’hurtling'loosely; generally I just looked like a daddy-long-legs that had been smacked through the air towards an open window) I’m about half as light as I was on flat ground. Weightless and smiling, I land in a big heap and the nerves and bad feeling explode out of me across the sand.
I miss the long jump for that reason, but if I ever get so nervous I don’t feel like I can cope I try and remember being airborne and landing. If you need to, you should think back to a place in your past and do the same.