When Fear Won

I was walking the other day when the old fear—thick as fog in the valley—suddenly wrapped around my chest like a cold hand. It was just after dawn, the air still holding the scent of last night’s rain, and I’d been hiking alone for miles, the silence of the cabin still echoing in my bones. My divorce had been a slow unraveling, and this walk felt like the final thread snapping. I stopped dead, heart hammering against my ribs, convinced I’d lost my way forever.

Then I looked down.

A spiderweb, glistening with dew, stretched between two pine saplings. It was perfect—delicate, intricate, holding its shape against the wind. Not broken. Not frayed. Holding. In that moment, the fear didn’t vanish. It just… shifted. I realized: fear isn’t the enemy. It’s the web itself—tight, fragile, but holding me in place until I could see the light through it.

That’s what I’m grateful for now: the way fear taught me to stop running. For twenty years, I’d rushed through forests, chasing the next trail, the next horizon, afraid of stillness. But that spiderweb showed me that stopping—really stopping—was the bravest thing. It let me feel the ache of loss without drowning in it. It taught me that the ground beneath me was still solid, even when the path ahead vanished.

Now, when fear rises (and it does), I don’t fight it. I pause. I look for the web. I remember: this too is holding me. It’s not a cage. It’s a bridge.

So to anyone feeling lost in their own fog: Don’t run from the fear. Stand in it. Look for the dew on the web. The ground is always there. And you are not alone in the holding.

— Ellen Ferguson, patient as the land