Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Siren of the North

The culprit caught. Crimes against all of humanity, cruelty beyond compare, and even torture were some of her charges. Yet she remains free to continue sending others through her vein of immoral onslaught. Outrage should grip the heart of the sane upon hearing such a story!! Good news though, I have found retribution.

Like a call from a siren, I went to her, the climbing gym. Warming up seemed pointless when she had so may alluring boulder problems that made my hands sweat just thinking about the process of unlocking their secrets. I found a beauty and went to work on her. After several intense burns, I reached her crown on link. An indoor send releases a psych based on the potential that my strength is moving in a direction that will allow me to more adequately explore the rock outdoors. Hence, with my psych level peaked, I found another lady to admire. The first run was inspiring. She seemed within my reach but complex enough that I knew she'd really make me work to get farther on a second date. The story is not unique. This gal hurt me just when I thought that I had her. The evil siren of the north (ie the gym) was proud of the fact that she had tangled yet another climber in her web of warm up stupidity.

At present, I've been a non-climber for a grand total of four days all the while carefully monitoring the progress of my finger. I've fully accepted the fact that I'm going to go a full 7 days before exploring my climbing potential. It's been amazing to watch the thoughts that fly through my head when I'm not training for a climb. Within these thoughts, I've found my retribution.

Let me digress. Climbing is a sport that gives me the opportunity to find the necessary parts of identity as I manage the constraints of mental and physical boundaries among the company of the most uniquely passionate and inspiring folks that I've ever met. When the climbing community beckons your presence, the draw is relentless.

Yet climbing takes so much time that I hardly realized what thoughts I've ignored in the presence of its greatness. Over the past few days, I have actually considered giving up climbing for some time because I discovered the ease with which I can move into one other passion that I have in life. This passion has been almost completely ignored since I first heard the call to climb. After a simple workout that did not involve climbing, I had extra time on my hands and sort of naturally sat down to read philosophy. Hours later, it hit me: the siren's hold on me has been broken. In this massive world of wonders, climbing is but one.

Chances are that I'll be back in a harness soon. I feel changed though. I can now see what I have given up to be a climber. It's significant, but so is climbing.