There’s something about a climb that burns your body. Something beautiful. There’s something about how it engages both the body and the mind. The moment is not lost on you because you are with the moment. The metaphors are abound, of course.
The notion of pulling yourself up. The physical act thereof.
Balance. A way of getting to know how your body aligns itself with the world around it.
Patience. Take your time, but not too much. The world will not wait forever.
Falling and getting up. The kind of fall where your feet, your bum, and your back hit the ground. Well, it’s foam padded ground. Safety first, folks.
You will fall, it is as inevitable as day turns into night. You fall and then you get up. Because the rocks are still the same and you haven’t yet made it to the top.
On a personal note, it is reassuring to recall how the year started on a shaky knee, and how now that very knee is used to push off a rock for higher ground, and how still that knee is used to stabilize my falls. And fall we must.
The thing about persistently falling is that the fear still remains. The fear itself persists: before the fall, during the fall, and after having fallen. Whether it’s a ninety foot drop or just few feet off the ground, the fear still stays.
The fear still stays but you climb anyway.