What Kind of Brave?

When do we push through and when do we pull back?

Inside Mammoth Cave on the “Domes and Dripstones” Tour. Picture by Author.

The door didn’t actually slam behind me as I slowly wound my way down the metal stairs in the dim light, but it felt like it did. We’d gone in a side entrance to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and it had a cinderblock structure with a heavy metal door built into it to keep people from accessing the cave without authorization. I’d already been caught off guard at the visitor’s center. The tour description had said we would be bussed from the main entrance to this side one, but I was surprised when not one but three busses showed up to transport the swelling crowd that was evidently all coming with us. 

The ceiling of the cave dripped at random catching me off guard with tiny, freezing droplets that spread out in my hair and occasionally rolled down my neck. I couldn’t readily identify with the exclamations of awe and excitement coming from the people around me. The passages were shoulder width at best as we wound down,…