Our Pets Heads Are Falling Off
So, before two months of no posting turns into three months of no posting I will finally post THIS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUZVhZSUsVY
The link above is to a video I made documenting a few problems I was able to get up during my brief six month stay in Bishop, California. I have at least a dozen more climbs on film but because of the lighting, the angle, or for some other reason they ended up on the cutting room floor (probably for everyone's sanity, I mean, who wants to watch thirty minutes of some asshole pawing his way up marginally difficult boulder problems that we have all seen a dozen times before??).
It is always interesting to me when things become derailed. For whatever reason people change. It is the one constant in life. People change, or need to change, so they take steps to make that change occur. Sometimes it is handled gracefully; other times they leave a path of destruction in their wake. Amongst the sadness, fear, and anger there are also other companions that seem to be overlooked at the table of present living. True empathy, transparency, respect, and generosity are sometimes difficult bedfellows. Hatred, jealousy, and envy are so much more fun to hang out with sometimes but they can really blind us to what is truly important in life and can keep us from knowing who we are and what we are made of: potential.
Why don't we stay in this state of mind all the time? I have no fucking clue. We get lazy, we start taking things for granted and then we get ugly, mean, and short. All the positive momentum we built up in the first place is actually just built on a foundation of bullshit, fake, irresponsible, running away. In the end, its so important to listen to your (hopefully) finely tuned intuition. There is this period of time when good and bad tend to get really blurred and start to become somewhat ambiguous as we apply them to real life situations. And sure, there a lot of 'grey' areas in this life. There are also a lot of feelings; feelings that shouldn't be so easily undermined by other people in your life. You have those feelings for a reason.
I'm not one to let all of my feelings hang out, especially in a forum such as this one. For one, I don't really know who reads this, and two I like to keep it pretty superficial when my words are so easily transmitted digitally around the world. However, it does help to share at least a modicum of what I think and feel from time to time as nonsensical as it sounds. What really matters is that I have missed being a part of the climbing community for a while now. While I have grown to love a lot of different aspects of the outdoor community the one thing I keep coming back to is that pure and simple movement up and over rock. The people I have met in this community, the camaraderie amongst those people, the support, and the absolute beauty of it all when its mixed together.
I'm back in Seattle. I'm alone. And I am looking for a job. Right now I have been reconnecting with friends and family and really focusing on my mental and physical health. There have been a lot of things in my life that I have been running away from; either because of fear or anger or a combination of both. I'm very grateful for the support I have here and extremely lucky to have the kinds of friends I have. Even the ones I have made just in the last couple of years.
The last couple of weeks I have found myself yet again in that beautiful mixture of people that make up the climbing community and am loving it. The weather has been brilliant and I even got out on a rope at Little si and found myself taking those lovely, scary, airy whippers from the tops of routes I've been climbing on for the last six years! How fabulous it has been.
I have no idea if I'll go back to Alaska. It stills feels a little premature to think about at this point. I do know how much I love it there though. I am eternally in Alaska's karmic debt for all of the things it has shown me; open my eyes up to; kicked my ass in; broken me in; and forever left me speechless about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUZVhZSUsVY
The link above is to a video I made documenting a few problems I was able to get up during my brief six month stay in Bishop, California. I have at least a dozen more climbs on film but because of the lighting, the angle, or for some other reason they ended up on the cutting room floor (probably for everyone's sanity, I mean, who wants to watch thirty minutes of some asshole pawing his way up marginally difficult boulder problems that we have all seen a dozen times before??).
It is always interesting to me when things become derailed. For whatever reason people change. It is the one constant in life. People change, or need to change, so they take steps to make that change occur. Sometimes it is handled gracefully; other times they leave a path of destruction in their wake. Amongst the sadness, fear, and anger there are also other companions that seem to be overlooked at the table of present living. True empathy, transparency, respect, and generosity are sometimes difficult bedfellows. Hatred, jealousy, and envy are so much more fun to hang out with sometimes but they can really blind us to what is truly important in life and can keep us from knowing who we are and what we are made of: potential.
Why don't we stay in this state of mind all the time? I have no fucking clue. We get lazy, we start taking things for granted and then we get ugly, mean, and short. All the positive momentum we built up in the first place is actually just built on a foundation of bullshit, fake, irresponsible, running away. In the end, its so important to listen to your (hopefully) finely tuned intuition. There is this period of time when good and bad tend to get really blurred and start to become somewhat ambiguous as we apply them to real life situations. And sure, there a lot of 'grey' areas in this life. There are also a lot of feelings; feelings that shouldn't be so easily undermined by other people in your life. You have those feelings for a reason.
I'm not one to let all of my feelings hang out, especially in a forum such as this one. For one, I don't really know who reads this, and two I like to keep it pretty superficial when my words are so easily transmitted digitally around the world. However, it does help to share at least a modicum of what I think and feel from time to time as nonsensical as it sounds. What really matters is that I have missed being a part of the climbing community for a while now. While I have grown to love a lot of different aspects of the outdoor community the one thing I keep coming back to is that pure and simple movement up and over rock. The people I have met in this community, the camaraderie amongst those people, the support, and the absolute beauty of it all when its mixed together.
I'm back in Seattle. I'm alone. And I am looking for a job. Right now I have been reconnecting with friends and family and really focusing on my mental and physical health. There have been a lot of things in my life that I have been running away from; either because of fear or anger or a combination of both. I'm very grateful for the support I have here and extremely lucky to have the kinds of friends I have. Even the ones I have made just in the last couple of years.
The last couple of weeks I have found myself yet again in that beautiful mixture of people that make up the climbing community and am loving it. The weather has been brilliant and I even got out on a rope at Little si and found myself taking those lovely, scary, airy whippers from the tops of routes I've been climbing on for the last six years! How fabulous it has been.
I have no idea if I'll go back to Alaska. It stills feels a little premature to think about at this point. I do know how much I love it there though. I am eternally in Alaska's karmic debt for all of the things it has shown me; open my eyes up to; kicked my ass in; broken me in; and forever left me speechless about.
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