Halfway up the route
(an 11a) I am lost
although umbilically attached.
Although
in the midst
of the gym’s morning throng,
its party atmosphere—
tunes playing, etcetera.
Lost.
Unclear how to place a foot
to lift my weight from this position—
frozen—both hands stretching
as far as they can, above and right,
clutching a hold.
My tiptoes
keep me from slipping off, equivalent
of a fall on a lead climb. Here I trust
the tight screws and pulleys set
by the clever youngsters
who develop the pathways
I attempt to decrypt
with my body each Saturday:
when I come off, I will be caught.
I don’t come off but
know I’m stuck.
How do I know
I’m stuck?
Every experiment tilts
me into a contest gravity
will win. I return to stasis,
refreeze. After mental consideration
of several alternative plot twists,
none where the protagonist,
that is, the climber, yours truly,
survives past the crux,
I cheat.
I step on a hold not red but white
thus, stay on the wall although
I am too tired to hack the rest
of the route and repeatedly
grab for jugs and slopers unconnected
to it. Repeatedly, to the red 11a I return
as a kind of tourist.
I gauge how tricky
is this section or that.
And can I figure out the next
move or the one after?
What I want
shifts from completion
of the 11a just to getting to the top
of the wall.
At last
I slap the final hold, call, “Take!”
My belayer yells, “Gotcha!”
She lowers her exhausted partner
not to dirt or rock but a thick mat
where we debrief. “You’ll get it.”
I am sure she will not be thwarted.
Meanwhile, should I make it a project?
Each visit could be like this:
this expenditure of energy, this thrashing
on a venture too difficult.
How else will I come to understand
where I end and the balance of the world starts?

***

PHC started rock climbing and writing around the same time. 11a routes about top out her climbing skill set. (Although she made it up a soft 11c once!) She also loves hiking and alpine skiing. For a handful of years in her forties she played soccer. 

Website: https://playwrightpam.wordpress.com/
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