Earlier today an epiphany came to me while ending a beautiful afternoon at Rumbling Bald. It was easily 70 with full sunshine. I can count on one hand the number of times I have been bouldering outdoors in the daylight since the Fall semester began. On two hands I can count the number of times I have been climbing period since then. Setbacks resulting for mysterious hand pain have frustrated me, a hefty school load keeps me exhausted with continual work, and pure lack of motivation has kept me from something I use to love doing.
A gorgeous day after Thanksgiving was just the motivation to get out. My guide book was accidentally left in Boone so I had to do without. All of the boulders that I happened to stumble upon were completely new to me and only leftover chalked up holds were left as my directors. I just climbed. Nobody around. Nobody spilling beta vomit. Quiet. Perfect. All the "problems" took a few tries. But there wasn't any way for me to know the grade, and for ultimately the expectations to get into my head. I didn't care. Sheer excitement of these boulders lying just beyond the popular circuit with such creative and fun movments rare to discover kept me pumped to get back on again and again. No hand pain. No sketchy lands. No pushing for my Umpteenth V-Whatever of the month. Quiet. Perfect.
As I fell onto my pad below a chossy boulder where I made friends with a curious, young black rat snake I thought about how I felt toward climbing. About why I have not pushed myself to go to the school gym. This day, like the problems I climbed, was one in few. It was for days like today that I fell in love with climbing. It was being outdoors, in the curves of a mountainside, with no final goals whatsoever except to try what seemed challenging and groovy. There was no way for me to tell the grade of each problem. Not very high, I know for sure. But also no names to drop to people in casual conversation, so that without admitting my grade they instinctively know by nominal association that yes, I did in fact just climb another V-121 (not a real grade if any non-climbers are reading this). It was just climbing. No competition, even friendly. It wasn't for looks and high numbers. It wasn't for building up awesome abs and stellar guns. It was for me. It was to flush out all of the stress build-up from this semester. It wasn't the instigator of the crushing and twisiting of my soul, it was the alleviator.
The way I felt today reminded me of the owners of the two pads I took with me. Mike Aubrey, who lended his crash pad to me before he left for California, steps out the door looking for an adventure everyday. Whenever I think of him I imagine him nonchalantly strolling into the woods with only necessities on his back accepting whatever path falls below his feet. And then Daniel, who is just as excited for someone climbing outside for the first time as he would be for a stranger climbing cruising up every V10 he/she comes upon. He is one of few that can re-ignite my will to give another go after being shut down continuously in a day. Attitudes like those and that I have seen in them and in very few others recently inspires and motivates me to keep pushing through hindrances and doubts.
As a friend told me once, "I'm not going to go crush. I am going to go climb."
End rant.
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