Climbing
I would speak to you of climbing
But how can one talk of climbing without speaking also of falling?
No matter. We will do both.
It is summer, and the rock is
Sun warmed and soft
It feels like a loaf of fresh bread under my hand.
Warm and fragrant and curved.
There is dust and pebbles on the ground at the foot of the cliff
And the constant knowledge that a rock could fall from above and
Crack your brain
And you would die there with your friends
In a warm trickle of blood in the grass
With a beautiful view of the lake
Then you swing into the air, so wide
Swinging in an arc and you are weightless and surprised and terrified
You are flying
Humans don’t fly but you do
For a startled instant, before you are afraid, you are airborne
And what was hard, and tenuous and tendony is
Weightless and hopeful
Because sometimes they catch you on the rope quickly and sometimes
They are inattentive and the crags swoop up towards you
Although
usually,
they catch you.
You compete with them a little
But it’s hard, because it is so obvious
The rock is so exacting
It does not give
You more marks if you ask or wheedle or whine
There is only gravity, and air. Up and down.
Everyone knows where everyone else it at and with time there is only your own body and you to measure yourself against.
The rope sometimes gives a little and you
Can swing your hip so, and
Place your pinkie a little overlapping
And shimmy your way into a better elbow bar
You can stand around in brightly colored rock gyms speaking of beta campusing dynos and monos. Slinging words like a fry cook serves greasy plates nonstop to spinning red-topped chairs and grinning biting faces.
But it doesn’t change the seconds you stand poised
Whole body tensed on one toe
Wondering if you can reach it… or if the ground will swoop up to you again
And again and again
Until one day you do.
There is the skin of your hands
Rough and rough-edged and the handshakes
That are so.. Strong other people think you are
Wringing them with your writhing fingers
But really you are grasping them
With the affection you begin to show
Small spiny ledges and big sloping
Slabs
The world becomes an endless puzzle to be solved and you stop
Wanting to reach the Top
And wondering about what would be the most Interesting to Climb
And crinkles develop at the corners of your eyes and you begin to judge people by how their legs tremble when they are above you and not how Hard or Technical their Route is.
You begin to admire a good Whoop and a good Committed Fall from someone who really tried and you say “You will get it next time” and you do not care if you Finish anymore only if you were at your
Edge.
And somewhere on the Route it becomes your Road and you stop caring about where someone is at for we are all subject to Gravity.
We are all climbing.
And there is no end there is just the endless sky and the pleasure of it
All.
