Carlsbad Caverns View Box

During recent years, I have felt increasingly uncomfortable hiking in the woods. Not only in dense tropical rainforests, but even on the Manzanita-covered slopes of nearby Mount Tamalpais.

It seems I’ve developed agoraphobia: “A fear of crowded spaces or enclosed public places.” Closets don’t scare me, and neither do elevators. Traveling in a space capsule wouldn’t be a problem. It’s only when I’m immersed in a chaotic situation—be it on a densely wooded hillside, amid jostling cars in a parking lot, or at a crowded cocktail party—that I find myself breathless and agitated.

Maybe that’s why I like caverns, with their illusion of limitless openness. Sometimes I let my imagination wander into this old souvenir view box, its blue-filtered slits shedding a peaceful pall onto the roughly sculpted walls. The box is small (only 3 inches wide) but very convincing. It reminds me of the View-Master® disks I loved as a kid, which transported me to other worlds.

I wish I could shrink myself to the size of a small ant and spend an afternoon inside this view box: writing in my journal, enjoying an aqua-tinted picnic, taking photographs, and gazing out at the brightly lit world beyond the cardboard frame.

In a way, I’ve sort of actually been there. Immersing myself within that tiny environment vividly recalls two very real places. The first is underwater, scuba diving through the filtered light of undersea caves in Belize, Hawaii, and Mexico. The second is inside the dimly lit altar rooms of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, listening to the monks chanting as smoke from juniper incense curls through thin beams of penetrating sunlight.

Wow. This little souvenir is more than a view box. It’s like the TARDIS, Dr. Who’s deceptive time and space machine: tiny when viewed from the outside, but infinitely spacious within.