Exactly thirty-five years ago this week I arrived at Royal Holloway College in Egham, Surrey, England to start my master's degree. The bus from Heathrow dropped me outside the college, and I dragged two large suitcases up the sidewalk (pavement) to the main entrance, it being the pre-roller bag era. When I turned the corner, the morning mist was parting and brilliant sun was just starting to light up the astonishing red brick Victorian building. I knew I had come home.
It took several days for food service to commence, but on its first evening, I lined up in the "Boog Tube" (don't ask!) and picked up a tray, and a plate of unbelievably stodgy meat, potatoes, cabbage and "pudd", and walked into the main dining area with its high ceilings, old portraits and many tables. It was one of those pivotal moments. I could choose to sit on my own off in the corner, or I could join one of the laughing, chattering groups of (mostly younger) students already eating. I chose the latter, and I will never regret it. The group I sat with became my core group of friends, and I am still in touch with several of them.
One of them, a guy with dark hair and a beard, somehow assumed from the fact that I was American that I must also be quite athletic, and he asked if I would like to go caving the following weekend. The caving club was taking a day in the Mendip Hills, and it would be great fun. My childhood experience with caves began and ended with Howe Caverns, near Albany, NY, where you walk upright around cathedral-like caverns and "ooh" and "aah" at all the stalagmites and stalactites. So I said yes. Why not?
On the day, we arrived by minivan at a small parking area, and my first clue should have been the fact that I could not see a cave opening. My second clue should have been the tangle of gear that people started taking out of the back of the van. Sets of headlamps attached to huge batteries on belts were separated out, one for each spelunker. I was told I should leave my glasses behind, because they would be ruined in the cave. I protested that I could see nothing without my glasses, but they insisted -- leave the glasses behind. Someone helped me attach the very old-fashioned miner's headlamp and battery to my body, and I was stunned to see students, one by one, disappearing into a miniscule opening in the hill on their hands and knees. Within minutes, I was one of them. This was probably not the right activity for a young woman with serious claustrophobia, and I knew it within seconds, but also being afflicted with a terror of causing inconvenience to anyone, I kept my mouth shut, and crawled on hands and knees with the rest of them, down, down, down into the bowels of the earth. I totally didn't "get" why we were doing this, but knew this wasn't the moment to analyze!
After an hour or so of slowly crawling downwards into the earth, we arrived at what must have been the destination -- a reasonably large "room" where at least all eight or ten of us could stand up and stretch. Then, we headed up again, I think by a different tunnel. Things were going fine until I realized that the person ahead of me had literally disappeared into a tiny dark circle. I was slim back then, yet reasonably tall, and a sick feeling came over me. When it was my turn, I was able to wrench my head and shoulders through this hole, but my forward progress stopped entirely when my hips got stuck. It was like a figure eight or an egg timer, with nothing to hold onto above, and nothing to prop my feet onto behind. Up until now, I had managed to stay quite calm, but at this, I started flailing around with my arms and legs and I burst into tears. I could see in my mind's eye the letter they would have to send to my parents ("Dear Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, your daughter, sadly, did not survive a college caving trip...") My tears brought the attention I needed, in that the person ahead of me finally grabbed onto one or both of my arms, and the person behind me started to push my legs, but still, no forward progress. It was finally decided that my headlamp and battery belt should be removed and pulled through separately, and once that was accomplished, I got through fine. At the other side, the headlamp and battery were re-attached, and I made it, eventually, out of the black tunnel into the bright sunlight. Not a moment too soon.
We all grabbed sandwiches, and sat out in the glorious fall sunshine eating them. Except for me, everyone was thrilled by what a great cave it had been, and they were looking forward to an even jollier time in a second cave in the afternoon. "Liz, do you want to go?" I politely said, "No, I think I'll just wander around town." I couldn't even begin to imagine the appeal of spending a bright, sunny day crawling around underground, and I was still stung by the mortification of having to be pushed and shoved like a sack of potatoes through holes in the rock. I watched them enthusiastically troop off to another cave not far away and start burrowing, and then I turned on my heels and set off to explore the tiny village.
At the time, I learned one lesson: to try not to judge those who would willingly take part in such an activity! They loved it. I didn't understand it, but they loved it. Love is love. Secondly, and this has resonated several times in my life -- there will be moments when you are utterly stuck and flailing about making an idiot of yourself and people behind and ahead of you may be rolling their eyes and pulling and shoving you, but if you remove all your extraneous baggage and let people help you, eventually you'll come unstuck and move forward and out into the light. You will.
Lastly, and this has just come to me as I'm writing, I think my day of caving has been a Plato's Allegory of the Cave-like metaphor for my whole journey since leaving England in 1981, only reversed. For reasons I still don't fully understand, I decided to head "down" into the recesses of my life and life itself, not to take the easy or comfortable path. It's been a path where, without glasses, I often couldn't see a thing, and was really overall not doing the activities I most loved. I challenged my claustrophobia, my dislike of the dark -- initially, just because I thought I had to try to do what every other American 20-something was doing (work in the corporate world) and not to stand out or be a bother. And once I was in the cave, there was no choice but to complete the whole circuit in and out. In 2015, I finally see a flicker of light ahead, and it makes me happy that I'm nearing the portal back into the sun! In the afternoon, after lunch on the grass, I can choose an easier path!
