Definitely a love/not so love, relationship...

June 30th, 2010: Some climbers call it “the sewing machine”, others call it “the Elvis”…I call it another case of, “what am I doing here?”

I spent my past few days at a climbing refuge for rock climbers with the idea that I would be taking classes to add some skills to my current natural monkeylike abilities. But, it ended up being more like here is a harness, some shoes and there is the rock you are going to climb following it with the silly question asking me if know how to make a figure eight knot. I wanted to tell him that could tie a good granny knot…and of course, didn’t say anything but, "no".

Yes this was another case of, “what am I doing here?,” for my first climb especially when I didn’t see a place to grab to keep from falling except to wedge my leg in a rock and hug the outer walls to rest thinking if the person belaying me below was even paying attention as they smoked their non-tobacco cigarettes. This is the time my leg began to perform “the sewing machine” and/or “the Elvis,” – whatever they want to call it, I was unable to hide my rapid leg movement until I internally removed myself from where I was. Today was definitely a day I would have liked a helmet whether it was a climbing helmet, bicycle helmet, hockey helmet or even the very same helmet Neil Armstrong wore as he took his first step on the moon.

Finally after clearing all – more like, clearing enough of my crazy thoughts…I managed to free my leg with some effort and slowly pulled myself higher by my elongated finger tips and toes. Once reaching the top, the internal reward made it clear on why I do silly things like this, exhausted… as my adrenaline has taken a beating on me.

Climb after climb, they became more and more technical but easier as my confidence grew and my system on telling the person below belaying me to please pay attention when I did not feel confident with my lack of stability on some portions of the climb as I clung to the wall to potentially reduce the distance of my fall.

After today I rediscovered that climbing is definitely a love/not so love, relationship for me. Once on top, I love it and once clinging on the side seconds away from falling…I not so love it.