This week I tried to think of my own personal experience of caves. I didn’t come up with much, but there was that one trip to Howe Caverns when my children were small. I remember how cold it got as we descended in the elevator, and how oddly thrilling it was to climb into a boat so far, it seemed, underground. I also remember how utter and complete the darkness was when the tour guide actually turned out the lights—the kind of darkness that makes you say, “I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.” But the truth was, at no time during that visit did I feel even a tiny bit unsafe, at no time was I frightened. It was all completely controlled, and there was no opportunity to get into even a little mischief.
It didn’t take too long to realize that the most vivid experience I’ve had of caves has been in reading about them. Specifically, that time I was in the seventh grade, and our English textbook consisted of excerpts from novels, and one of those was the chapter called “Riddles in the Dark,” from The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien.