The Crew, Saint Patty's - Aiden, Lewis, Haggle, Jaime, Mark |
As we meandered back & forth, spying each line, barely
able to contain our excitement, I withdrew from my normal self, my MO, as it
were, & walked up to a group of climbers working a line located on what I
was about to find out to be El Diablo wall. W/ that information now stored, we
were free to gather our bearings more accurately. God, it’s just damn amazing,
I love it, I spewed to the climber who straightened our bearings for us. ‘Yeah,
pretty cool, eh?’ he said. ‘Something to aspire to, for sure!’ Yeah, man, no
kidding, I lamented, maybe next season, I laughed…maybe, & chuckled once
more…I thanked him & we were on our way. I talked about the area &
climbing there the entire way home. Haggle listened politely, adding every now
& again a ‘yeah’ & ‘that’d be sweet’ & something I remember w/ a
crystal tink, ‘we’ll get there. We could climb there now, you just have
to realize it. But…’ she added, ‘WE’LL get there. We’ll get there.’…
It wasn’t lost on me that she had emphasized WE so
blaringly. It had made me smile (& smiling I am, right now as I write this
early in the mourning, realizing that what she actually meant was not that we
would get to any particular place, but would continue to search the path,
struggle & relax, fight against the concrete of the self, PUSH against the
HARD we encounter everyday, w/in all the different realities folded around us,
and that WE would do it together…)…
Call me a bleeding heart…it’s ok, because it’s true. It’s
one of the few things I’m not ashamed of, one of the few things I believe is
not fully under my control, & I’ve learned to embrace that which you can’t
control. To accept those things that swirl about in an existential arc, using
it to the advantage of yourself & those around you, for the greater good.
& thus is how I came to the decision of my next line. The next climb,
mounting for me right at this moment, as a very important one, if not solely for
it’s idealistic tone & measure, but also to lend weight to the memory I
have of the place. Haggle & mine’s ‘exploration’ of the area, & the
blissful energy that snaked thru our veins as we quite literally viewed & knew
the future.
Half Acre, 5.12a, a Boone Speed route, reads from out the
guide: “there are many acres of slopers on this bulging plot.”
The decision made, laid down before me as a solid one, gives
me wriggle room to enjoy the rest of the weekend waiting out the bad weather to
relax & focus on more important things, for the moment (enticing also is
the promise to have multiple burns on something other then crimps…my fingers
will be please).
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