“The most valuable thoughts which I entertain are anything but what I thought. Nature abhors a vacuum, and if I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled.”
– Thoreau
“You’re gonna fall…”
Stop. Breathe.
“You’re 31, what are you going to…”
Breathe. “She’s probably out enj…”
Fuck. “Kids??… Plans?… Your leg is shaking.”
Breathe in. Out. Stop thinking. Forearms pumped, bad hold. Right leg is jack hammering away on a small ledge.
“God damn it. Why is the crack wet? You’re going to fall…”
I throw the cam in. The placement is good enough and I grab for the leash, desperately, feeling weak-willed.
“Fuck!,” I screech, pissed at myself. The roar ricochets off the cliff walls and surprises me with its pitch. The singular growl is the first audible thing I’ve heard other than my heavy breathing and what sounded like sharp clattering about, a smashing of kitchen pots and pans, in my head.
…
This mental turn-around-whirling-this-way-and-that which creeps up on you and can overrun the thought train—is gnarly.
Some days I have my head on, fine tuned, ready to cope. This mostly looks like steady breathing and a present attentiveness. On other days it gets away from me and doubts from life seep into a domain they have no place being.
Not here, not now.
…
I climb to create space, to have non-thought. Like a reset button, things become clearer after a good day out.
Yet, lately I think about leading sport and am met by a gut curling, that twisting up of intestines like the lead in to a break up or the pre-fessing to of a lie; Some Poltergeist worm niggling about in your pit eating it’s way to coring you out (that movie freaked the hell out of me when I was a kid).
Bouldering: Purity in movement. Trad: Deeply satisfying. Sport: Something ain’t right.
…
It’s a bad association perhaps—like how I can’t do vodka—and I think it’s tied to the last time I did a lot of the sport in Turkey. The juju ain’t good.
There’s all these emotions wrapped up into the discipline that was our catalyst for the trip. Those days spent on a wall, our time buttressed by discomfort. It all seeped together like water coloring on too much wet; bleeding.
I guess what surprises me most is how visceral the aversion is, how much angst is there.
…
As a comparison: With writing, for example, I may avoid the work, brimming with inertia as I am, like a hook in my stomach weighted to the bottom of the sea. But when I sit down the anxiety doesn’t amplify, it actually recedes; I’m hauling the anchor up. It feels good, it’s fun.
When sport climbing it seems the discomfort can only be managed. I find myself being pushed into the disquiet more often than not, with the consolation being a reprieve from anxiety more than satisfaction of movement or achievement. Where’s the flow? Where’s the fun?
…
I know it’s not all memory-laden, there’s a fear of falling and the simple need for more experience; There are expectations.
Such as it is, something to explore. Something to give space to, something to let play out.
And as Thoreau says, maybe I’m being all too careFULL about it.
Photo by friend of the author
Aaron Gerry 