A Day Anew

Back in Baltimore.

A lot has happened since my last entry. My couple week sabbatical in Baltimore reconfigured to six, I returned to Kentucky, went on a business trip to San Diego, climbed in J-Tree among other places, had bad times, had great times, had strange times, looked within, looked without and emerged...anew.

Being back in Baltimore was amazing. I got to see old friends, enjoy old hot spots, climb at my old gym and take in an assortment of other things. Somewhere in the midst of it, I thought of making a bit of a run at it and looking into staying semi-permanently. It was certainly less than optimal, but I thought I could exist here in a state of relative contentedness and be alright with the prospect. As a result, Baltimore found itself added to my list of possible semi-permanent homes.

The climbing aspect of being back was awesome because the setting at the gym, Earth Treks Climbing Center, focused mainly on styles different than those that I had come to develop since leaving; so I was able to rework my climbing as a whole and continue to progress. Also, climbing with old friends was awesome because I got to revisit the energy exuded by those who had initially driven me to advance myself through the sport.

Not to mention getting to hang out with my good friends from my days as a trifle academic that were able to help the institution coerce me into subscribing to its worth long enough to attain a swatch of paper validating my time and efforts. Wherever one is, it is important to always bear in mind that it is the people and experiences that make life much more than the surroundings I think. As such, seeing old friends was definitively beneficial and enamoring.

While there, I made trips back to Kentucky and actually climbed some. A novel concept. On one such unsuspecting day, I came painstakingly close to sending the proudest line I have ever laid tips to. Proud not for the grade or any such nonsense, but instead for the meaning behind the route. It was a route that upon my first viewing, three months into my climbing career, I deemed near impossible and certainly improbable for my feeble shell to ever conceivably scamper atop of. Yet, there I was, realistically inches from grasping the perceived ungraspable. I ended up not sending the route that trip as I fell with the rope inches from snapping the deciding clip, but am confident it will go down on the next go. And even if it were not to, coming that close to something I once saw as a never-ever sort of route was, and is, awesome to me.

Then the business trip. Just as life was beginning to boil over in Baltimore as two months of living inside of my head attempting to make sense of it all was bound to ultimately provide the impetus for, I was granted a respite. I was to fly back to San Diego for two weeks in order to set for the first ever ABS (American Bouldering Series) competition in San Diego that was to be held at my gym, Vertical Hold Climbing Center, on December 5th. It was as if I had not missed a beat.

It was decidedly great to be back in San Diego. I had only been a part of my new found community since April when I had begun climbing again, but it was a tightly knit one that had taken me in wholly and grew stronger for me at an exponential rate. As such, it all came in a feverish rush. The setting went well, and the comp went even better. We had tons of sponsors, an amazing turnout of pebble monkeys, music being spun by the incredible, or possibly incredulous, DJ Dorian, and hamburgers. Make no mistake, all events are afforded an extra glint and glimmer if hamburgers are involved. All in all, the event went off without a hitch and the requisite after party was similarly fantastic.

Due to ensuing events, however, it came to be that yet another two week stint was to be extended to something more strikingly resembling that of six. As it turned out, the gym was in dire need of extra help for the holiday season and as I had nothing better to do than catch a plane, they asked if I would be willing to have my stay extended to mid-January. After short consideration, I felt myself inclined to agree for reasons plural.

As it was, the extended time allowed me to spend the holidays with my family, be around my San Diego crew longer, further cement my developing viewpoints and aims for my near future, work to mend and bolster bridges and, of course, climb.

I set, trained and climbed like a fiend. Nothing new on the onset at a glance, I suppose, but there was more now. Finding myself completely dissatisfied with grades and number syndrome, I was climbing only what I wanted to climb with little regard for how it stacked up to conventional measures of difficulty. I finally got to where I want to be with climbing. Do I think it would be amazing to exist on the edge and do the hardest routes in the world causing shock and awe to course freely throughout the veins of gym poseurs and pseudo dirtbags everywhere? Hell, I imagine that would be nice. But would I rather climb routes of varying difficulty, including some pretty damned hard ones, that were fun as hell with absolutely no care as to whether it were V12 or V2? The answer is a defiant yes.

I finally am truly climbing for me. Not chasing numbers. Not chasing notice. Not chasing belonging. Not chasing solace. There is me, there is climbing. Together we exist. Endlessly and, perhaps, pointlessly deep, I know, but true nevertheless. Up until now I have utilized climbing as a tool to better myself, but now find this unnecessary. Now climbing is just climbing. And I effing love it.

So, one step taken. Now, what to do with the rest of things. I have come to a state of calm cool amidst the barrage of synaptic blasts endured in recent past and have resolved to definitively rise above my current state of mediocrity. Before I was unsure as to the path for doing so and, as such, dealt at great theoretical length with the task of endeavoring to decipher the proper trail to trod upon; but I now see that it is simply about stepping somewhere and being something. For better or worse, a lesson will be learned and life will be lived.

In concise conclusion, life is not dissimilar to a geocache. The end result cannot be known until the journey is taken, and it is likely irrelevant. Perhaps, and hopefully, the endgame is a splendid hodgepodge of things of wonder, but it is simply the proverbial icing upon the cake that is the journey itself and those that you chose to share your path with.