I haven’t written in a long time, so forgive me if this is disorganized, tangented, and so riddled with half-baked thoughts it makes no sense to anyone but me.
Recently, I had a piece I wrote about free climbing a new route in Zion published in Climbing. While I was working through the revisions with my friend (and now digital editor of Climbing, so cool) Anthony Walsh, I struggled to recognize myself in the words I had written a year ago. Those words were so illuminated. It was so evident that my eyes were still wide from that experience and the light they were reflecting is something quite momentary. I like the metaphor of big, expanding experiences to be like a huge knock to the pivot point of the pendulum that is our lives—which I think I heard from an interview with Margot Talbot. For a moment, the knock totally changes us; on one end, that knock is delivered by things like our loved ones dying, or the end of a relationship. On the other, there’s falling in love, or, fuck, putting up a new route in Zion if you’re a basic ass bitch like me. Full circle, when I was editing those words the other day, I noticed that I had written the words right after one of those massive knocks. My pendulum had been abruptly changed and was swinging to new, illuminating heights. I remember spending an entire day writing that first draft in a cafe in Eugene, Oregon on my way home to Squamish.
All this being said, after the initial force of the experience, our lives do maintain a resonating imprint the experience had on us. It isn’t always good. Hopefully it is.
I’m certainly not in one of those “I have all the answers to the big questions in life” moments. After spending another Autumn trading future financial freedom for finger cracks, friends, sketchy haircuts, and a surprising amount of techno music, I am now paying the fucking price. The classic, privileged, bullshit I seem to set myself up for every damn year of my adult life. I am laughing to myself as I write this: you chose this, dog! You so knowingly chose this! The last few winters out west were actually quite nice, thanks to good friends, temperate (for Canada) climate, and a job I loved. This winter isn’t so bad either, and I’m actually quite happy and well, but man, the east is harsh. It is flat, and wet, and don’t let them fool you, greyer than the west coast! No fucking joke! Again, I have good friends here—namely an awesome girlfriend—and again, I’m actually quite happy, and profoundly aware that I made my weird, Montreal-in-the-winter bed and am sleeping in it. So, take the drama with a grain of salt cause I’m doing just fine and have a lot going for me, but I am certainly not that wide eyed young man scrawling pages upon pages about enlightening experiences and being in tune with the mountains.
No, I’m that young man that either borrows his girlfriend’s car, bikes, gets rides from friends, or takes transit to work, all of which are about an hour most days. On these transit rides, I listen to The Daily if it seems interesting and not too depressing. I people watch, which is really fun and wholesome. For example, I totally profiled this goth-looking guy the other day: amidst all the various spiked accessories (which might also just be business-casual in Montreal, je pas) he was wearing these big headphones, and I playfully pondered what heinous My Chemical Romance song he was listening to. Big words illuminated on his phone (right beside me, yes, I peeked, and you have too!) as he checked the lyrics to the song he was listening to, and it was worship music! Worship music! Something like Give yourself to Him, and He will rise you out of the ashes or something. Huh.
I’ve also refamiliarized myself with having to resist the urge to quit my job every fifteen minutes. I haven’t felt this way in a few years, and I’m very grateful for that, cause wow, is it ever heinous! I’m working at a factory that builds climbing walls (that shall remain nameless to protect what little dignity I have). The people are great. The work is physical though, and potentially wrecking my body to build climbing walls sometimes feels overwhelmingly arbitrary. Sometimes I can feel the sands of time slipping through my metal-stained hands and I remember that nothing is free. I spent my fall climbing in some amazing places alone and with my friends: La Gorges Du Verdon, Céüse, Squamish, Smith Rock, Trout Creek, Moab, Indian Creek. I got my ass kicked, put some routes down, and got close to a couple of major, major dream routes. I ate a lot of potatoes with my girlfriend, was a shitty friend during a gas station incident, attended a hair dying party, and watched a 12-foot tall effigy of tumbleweeds burn into the night with the Lord of The Rings soundtrack blasting. It was awesome! But it wasn’t free! And spring ain’t free either! So, I cut metal and listen to Serial, Dungeons & Daddies, Crackdown, TED Radio Hour, various social work podcasts, and way too many climbing podcasts. The business is conducted entirely in French, which has been eye-opening to the level of privilege I have held around language in my life. Even with colleagues that are quite kind, it has been quite lonely. At first, I tried really hard to listen and comprehend what was happening at meetings, or at the small talk in the lunchroom. Now during meetings, I close my eyes and climb The Cobra Crack, or The East Face, or this route Hoai-Nam and I put anchors on in the Adirondacks. At lunch, sometimes I try to pay attention, and sometimes I read my book. I’m constantly checking forecasts and my bank account. My mind wanders between climbs, school, and the people I miss on the west coast—who probably have no idea that I miss them! Hopefully they do. Anway, I try not to quit my job!
You’re too broke Nat. Don’t do it. Just keep your head down, do a decent job, cut some metal, drill the t-nuts, and go home. Stop texting your friends to see if they want to go climb El Cap in January. Stop scheming trips to Mexico. You’re too damn broke.
No, I am not that young man writing page after page of enlightened experiences.
I am that young man writing essay after essay (but I’m not as focused and grind-oriented as this look-at-me-busting-my-ass-blog-post may have you thinking, in fact I spend many nights eating microwave popcorn and watching Kim’s Convenience with Hoai-Nam). I quite like school and am really looking forward to a career in social work. It has been interesting to go back to work doing something I don’t really care about. I want to be a social worker, and I know that now. That’s motivating. I also quite like how the content of social work classes are so focused on being aware of your presence in a situation, and understanding how situations come to be (structural, organizational, individual influences). I like being switched on to looking at myself and the world through the lenses of power, interaction, and individual stories. For example, after a few months of working in a mellow workplace where I don’t speak the language but can quickly have things translated for me, I cannot imagine how lonely it would be to immigrate to a country where you do not speak the language. I cannot imagine how lonely it would be to be homeless in that country, how difficult it would be to meaningfully advocate for yourself, or articulate the nuances of your personality. There is a lot more to that subject. A lot more.
Climbing, as always, plays a major role in my life. Be warned, you might have to cut the crust off of this paragraph to get to the good bits.
Besides a week during the holidays in the New River Gorge—which was profoundly energizing—our outdoor climbing has mostly been in upstate New York. Whenever the forecast is around 3C or so, Hoai-Nam and I have been going to The Spider’s Web. The Adirondacks are amazing. The climbing is world class, and the beauty is accompanied by a lot of wonderful silence. In November, I checked out an unclimbed line left of Zabba. It is aesthetic and features cool, manageable movement. There was enough gear, but not enough daylight to sort it all out in the day and a half of time we had. It was an awesome weekend.
We tried to go back a few weeks later and froze our optimistic asses off. I tried to climb and yelped from the cold.
We also tried to go back last week and found the approach to be quite engaging! The rime covered talus field made for 5.12 approaching conditions. When we arrived at the crag, the sun soon disappeared and the cold set in. After climbing the classic 5.10- TR and finding it quite icy in places, the future of the rig was uncertain. All that time in the shop thinking about my mortality was adding up though, and I was having a difficult time differentiating between it actually being too cold and me not seizing the moment. I hummed and hawed, and eventually agreed to set up a top rope. Alas, the top of the climb was covered in rime, and ice choked where the protection would be. With some sadness, winter came crashing down on me. My lifeline, this neat little project, was choked with ice! And so was I! I narrowly avoided an existential crisis and was soothed by constantly volleying with Hoai-Nam “that it is just great to be out” (which it is) and, of course, gas station Mac n Cheese. American comfort.
Satire aside, reality felt heavy when I understood that this route would have to wait till spring. It felt like this microcosm. That this climbing part of me, of my spirit, the part that wrote those passionate words about The Crack in The Cosmic Egg would have to wait till spring. Heavy.
It manifests in different ways though. I’m training my ass off again this winter and really enjoying it. My friend Stu made me a training plan last winter, and I tweaked it slightly and have found it to really be working well for me. I’ve also been enjoying a sort of less neurotic type of discipline, which I’ve found more manageable and motivating. I get my workouts done, but I’m more flexible in how I arrange them according to how I feel. I’m also more graceful with myself when I don’t feel particularly strong. Showing up is what matters, as with most things in life, I am learning. Also, and here’s the crusty bit, when did everyone start filming themselves doing stuff in the climbing gym? Also, and here’s another crusty bit, if I had a nickel for everytime I’ve seen a gymbro walk by the training area on their way to the change room and try to do a one arm pull up, I could quit my fucking job and go climbing in the sun somewhere.
It is interesting, cause this certainly isn’t some proclamation that the best days are behind me and blah blah I hate climbing, myself, and anyone doing something interesting. Not at all. It is just an ode to the seasons of life.
We live on this swinging pendulum. Right now, I’m at the point you just read about, living in a city “where if you aren’t mean, you will never find parking,” (Bui, 2023). Of course I find myself both preparing and yearning for the swing of the pendulum: For the times that work feels meaningful, for the times that there is air below my feet and I am inspired and challenged, for the times I am more often with the people I love, in places I love. But right now, I’m doing weighted pull ups. I’m scheming like you only scheme in the winter. I’m writing essays. I’m not talking very much, cause I only understand what is going on around me about 50% of the time. I’m playing Dungeons and Dragons. I’m eating brunch with my girlfriend. I’m leaning over a little too far on the subway to read some curveball GOSPEL lyrics on some dudes phone?
And the pendulum will swing, and swing, and swing, pushed by the variable momentum of life.
