A sunny
Saturday at Indian Creek, tired and not sending, my hands ripped from their
tortured devotion. More cracks loom all
around, each an invitation to try, to get whupped, to see if I have the
strength and tenacity and elegance to dance with its brutal simplicity.
So many
opportunities, and I’m so tired. The
dance is so hard. Why am I trying? Why did I drive here alone on a weekend, to
struggle and bleed and drink beer with tired hands with these stoic men? Why do I keep running?
Thoughts
drift to loss and sadness…the tendrils of a dream. Memories of love, days spent basking in a
woman’s sunshine, the bliss of togetherness.
Days of friendship, with our own rains but absent of the sting of
isolation, the endless march, feeling the weight of my tired feet.
Someone
at the wall needs a toprope put up so I grovel out of my perch amongst the
rocks and shake the cobwebs from my head, rack up. In itself an act of intention. The climb is a 5.10 finger layback into a
thin-hands slot, don’t need extra gear, it’ll go. On the vertical again, pulling hard above a
piece, pushing the possible fall out of mind beneath me, only movement is
upward.
Clipping
the anchors on a wall of chocolate in the early evening, the gulf of air all
around, the ravens circling, the valley verdant in spring foliage, life
blossoming in cactus and cottonwoods in the desert. Lean out and breathe it in, my back sore and
rippling under my shirt, my hands crusty and stiff. This is why.
Lowering
to the ground amongst sore, sweaty people, and for now, because of now, they are friends.
Lounging on a boulder in the fading sunlight, commenting on the progress
of comrades above, sharing pains, telling lies and fueling dreams. Letting bare feet smudge into the coarse red
dirt, climbers above, etched in shadow against the rock, still in that sharper
world.
Ryan
grunts as he attempts to swing a meaty wrestler’s thigh into the gaping crack
above his head. Large cams hang beneath his shoulders on a sling, dangling like
some whimsical wind chimes as he shudders to get purchase. Scott belaying, silent, stoic. In their world each edge of rock is sharp,
each line clear, each feature and curve of stone critical in its size and
texture. The light slices across
immutable edges, the rope, their lifeline, threads humbly over unchanging
stone. Never more clear that we are
visitors.
Below,
the edges soften. Features blur together
into aggregate forms, lumped together for simplicity: pillar, talus, corner,
ground. No longer tuned to the
whispering rhythm of rock and cliff, the mind drifts to softer hues: the view
below, the panorama of canyonlands, conversations, water. The sun dips into some untrodden tract of
desert, the golden hour falls on the Second Meat Wall; conversation mingles
with the pop of beer cans, truth and lies.
Our world soft, our bodies relaxed after the fight. Climbers still above, perched on the cliff
like some forgotten gargoyles, clawing their way toward heaven.
The sky
above, the dirt below.
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