I saw shooting stars the night before my first trad lead.
Prezi and I laid outside on the front porch. The night sky glimmered. Framed by the bracketed roof of Freefall's family cabin, a speck of light darted across the sky but disappeared before I could make a wish. I was wrapped in layers of down that were always associated in my mind with the smell of warmth. Towards my side in disarray, a headlamp, 'The Snow Leopard', an army knife, and a half-folded Patagonia jacket were strewn across the planked wooden platform. Here the frostiness of the late season would take longer to stir my lukewarm feet. A while before, just a sliding glass door away, we were in the living room, tossing words and laughter between our raised arms and lowered cans. Impermeable walls guarded a haven of permeable mirth. But now I'm outside. Against a cold night every nerve and simple object tingled with its own life.
I opened my eyes. As a kid, staring directly into the eye of the sky had always unnerved me. That impalpable distance felt so far, so insecure, that if gravity were to flip at any moment I'd be lost in free fall into an abyss of aery nothingness. Even now, lying flat beneath a sky blossoming with twinkles, I instinctively clenched the linings of my sleeping bag. The assuring pressure of hard wooden planks rested my breath. I leaned closer to Earth, straining not to fall into an ocean of stars.
Like hikers tracing out switchbacks, Prezi and I converged on and parried the contours of our hopes, tracing a line between mountains, culture, science, and people. We stayed up for a while, then drifted into slumber.
The next day, I completed my first trad lead on the second pitch of Betty (5.3). It felt pretty secure throughout. If I wasn't already enamoured of cams before, I was now head over heels for them. Trad climbing is freeing. No bolts, fixed routes, or end anchors. With a rack, rope, and trusty belayer you can point anywhere and climb. But you needed rigour. I could feel danger glaring jealously at every underfull deployment and run-out rope. There is no dilly-dallying, no loss of concentration until you've pulled through to the anchor, clipped in, rappelled, and touched down. Otherwise, every tiny fear and each bit of laziness is the little-death that brings total obliteration.[1]
Inevitably my mind wandered back to the semester at hand. I was fighting all the little fires on the way up to the Gunks. Five classes, research, Waddle, HMC, CNUGS (barely), and trying to but really not doing anything to my best. Every tardy step and every plan not exhausted now snowballed into bigger problems — and it was these snowballs that plummeted over my mind on the drive. Some last-minute pleas, emails, psets, a call with Jude. The road was endless. In that time, the tiresome night had devoured nearly two albums of the Hamilton soundtrack. If the semester had been a trad lead, I would have been hanging precariously on a loosely placed nut in a flaring crack.
That's the crux. Instead of relying on the bolted anchors of a sports route, if I hoped to find my own route up a crack, I had to reconcile two irreducible facets: the vision of carving out a beautiful line and the meticulous placement of what is immediately before my eyes. Both must be carried through, and I think, probably in PWM.[2]
Tomorrow, I am to visit New York for a meeting with investors, and soon my longing eyes of a wanderer would turn 20. It's a big monolith I should seek to scale. I hope to find more thoroughness with each placement and top-out.
[1] Frank Herbert, Dune