This past week has treated me with the utmost respect an inanimate object and piece of time has ever treated me. I'm on my way to losing weight to be a better, stronger climber, I reconnected with two people who each have special places in my heart, I spent more time talking on a phone than I can ever remember in the recent past (I have a fear of phones), I've done a lot of traveling, a lot of thinking, a lot of connecting, and a lot of climbing, and had my moment, that quintessential moment people have, when they realize, where their place is in life, and everything is... good now.
Lets roll back a little bit. I am unemployed. I want to use my time to get in better shape but a bad knee and bad asthma have taken running out of the picture. I plan on starting to bike more but that hasn't happened. So mostly, I've been thinking. I thought about life. I thought about my place in the climbing community. I thought about the degrading state of the place that "community" holds in climbing, and so I wrote.
I wrote a manifesto of sorts. It got a few reads in the short time it was on Facebook. It got some good receptions, and some confused ones, and because of the confusion and the hurt it might have done in its angry and unpolished state, I took it down, to be rebuilt, stronger and faster... oh wait, thats something else. But the removal of the manifesto didn't go unnoticed, and I soon was passively threatened by two heros of mine in the local scene, so I shared the manifesto with Nick Rhoads of Boulders Climbing Gym in Madison, WI, in fear that he'd never let me in if I didn't. Rhoads is hardcore. He does crazy ass shit for the sake of being hardcore, and is not afraid to tell you how hardcore he is. He is also King of Ethics, and has solved problems for me such as Deep Water Soloing dabs and crazy other things.
Later I'll post my manifesto, but for now, lets just say, I think that community should be brought back as the focal point of climbing. Look around, it's losing its place. Rhoads immediately told me to get my ass out and climb with him more, and I hope I can (but the alpine starts dude! I live 2 hours from where you're going and you want me there WHEN?), but the offer reminded me, the people that truly understand climbing, haven't ever lost that community pride, and getting in the community is a two way deal. You have to open yourself up and let people know you're game for whatever they want to throw at you, because you want to truly live.
Somewhere in there, last Monday, I swung down to Madison, WI to declare my major see some friends and do some climbing at the gym. It wasn't anything spectacular (the climbing) but seeing friends was great. The sad fact was, I had regressed in climbing ability with the 1 month off I had taken because of the distance. That had to change.
Last Thursday morning, the hangboard went up in the garage. Now for those of you not up on Wisconsin weather, it gets pretty damn cold here in the winter months. But, better friction, right? The hangboard is keeping me sane while I'm an hour from anything climbable, but I'm starting to hear more and more about places closer and closer that I can take advantage of when I get stronger, so I hang, and I'll be hanging in the doorway to the cold negative degree fahrenheit weather in the winter, and next year, if I'm back here again, I will use my time to explore deeper the meaning of my life. (more on this later).
Tuesday, I was on the road again. I headed somewhere between Stevens Point and Madison for a trip climbing at one of the smaller (but one of few places in Wisconsin that is a) sport climbing crag. Real climbing! I had forgotten how much I loved clipping bolts. I arrived at the location of the crag, and just like I knew, the parking, was at a truckstop. Thats right kids. Hillbilly Hollow is the name of the crag. A great limestone outcropping with easy slopey climbs, to pretty sheer slab climbs, to overhanging intermediate/moderate difficulty climbs. I met up with some friends from the climbing club in Madison. We had decided to INVERSE ALPINE START the day. Haven't heart that before? Well what that means is, to make the two hour drive there, I left at around 11:45 and didn't touch rock until 2:00! The climbs were behind the truck stop in a forest and so the climbing was good all day. We were alone for a while, but were joined by some interesting folks. One was a guy from Stevens Point, a grad student in Oceanography at the Cape Town University by way of the University of Hawaii. He was a surfer that got into climbing by way of the amazing climbing around Cape Town. I think his name was Brennan. Then there was Cody. A man who had hardly climbed before, but got geared up, and immediately learned in one try how to give a lead belay, but then was confused with top rope belaying. CRAZY. What are you doing kid?! It was a fun time, with my three friends and I cranking out a bunch of routes in 4 hours. Theres enough there for maybe two more trips back when I'm stronger, or one if I wait a little bit longer. I'm just ITCHING to clip more bolts.
Then, on the way home, I decided to return to Green Bay by way of a different route than I had taken. The route I took to get to the climbing was winding and pretty, but I just wanted to get back, so I took 39 to 29 in Wausau. I had planned to stop and see a former neighbor from college but life got in the way of that. It was around 7:30, and 30 miles east of Wausau, my car broke down. It got going, and then broke down again. I flagged down a nice middle-aged Native American fellow on a motorcycle, and as it looked and smelled like I was burning oil, I asked him if he could bring me some. He said he was going to his father-in-laws place a few miles up the road and he would come back for me. He did come back for me, and I was in shock. But the problem seemed less and less like the oil as time went on, and it looked more and more likely that I was not going to get home.
I called my parents, as any panicked young person would do, and they joined me in the panic. My dad called up a friend in Wausau who knew me when I was born in that small town a few years back, and arranged a place to stay in their house, with nice sheets, a cute but needy dog, WIFI, and fresh baked cookies. The car was towed away under the watchful eye of the sheriff who stopped by (and was the nephew of the tow truck driver, so you know we were in a SMALL town in the middle of nowhere), and I was safe and sound. I then got a phone call I had been waiting for for weeks. A friend from high school who went off to college before I did and whose family moved back to Colorado (the lucky bums, and they don't even climb!) decided to drop a line. We talked about life, her travels past and future all over the world, what life has in store for us, and about the possibility of seeing each other soon. It was with great joy that I shared that I may just be seeing her sooner than I could have hoped. I will be traveling to Colorado in 4 weeks, and hopefully will see her before her year in France (she's fluent, and it just adds to her beauty). It was a hard night but an amazing one for me, and part of that will be explained later.
The next day, (Wednesday, for those of you keeping track at home) I was on my way home. My father picked me up, sans car, and we headed to Green Bay. That night, I sat and thought about what had transpired in this week, and I posed a question to a friend I have never met, Mr.
Joey Kinder. I asked him about home, and if there was one place he ever felt at home. The answer to that will come in my next post. By the end of the night, reflecting on life and on the past week, I was a new person, with a new outlook and understanding of my life, and I think I have found my meaning and my purpose. I will post about that tomorrow as well.
Today I caught up with another friend I haven't talked to in a while. It was good to see her again, and it might just be the last time I will see her in a long time. She has a boyfriend now, and it was the first time I had ever hear her use that word "boyfriend" but I am so happy for her. Her boyfriend is one of the luckiest guys on earth (I can say that for a fact as I've known her for the better part of 5 years) and I'm sure he feels on top of the world right now. I wish them both the best and I cherish the fact that no matter what, she will always be online, late at night, saying hi, right as I want to go to bed, and we can catch up for a brief moment before I drift off to sleep. She too has touched my life deeply I cannot even express it in words, and so today was just another day in a string of days, that made me feel on top of the world.
Tomorrow I will be going back to Wausau to get my car, with a new fuel pump, and be returning home to try this all again some other day. What tomorrow will bring, well with my new outlook on life and sense of purpose, it should hold a lot. Hopefully tomorrow, if not tomorrow, then soon, I will share my manifesto, my revelations, my conversations with Joey Kinder, and my new purpose in life.
I hope you all find your purpose and you try your best to live it. To you climbers, recently, four climbers (now with the sad addition of the death of climbing and free soloing pioneer John Bachar) have passed away doing what they love. I truly think there is no other way to live and no other way to die, than to live and die with love in your heart.
Stay strong, stay safe, live life, have love. A muerte.
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