Today Joe and I went to the climbing gym, and on the way he asked if I wanted to do Weakness Wednesday with him. This is normally a Joe/Pete thing, but Pete is in Canada with Boy Scouts. Okay, I said, thinking I would mostly be focused on footwork. Weakness Wednesday is where you do rock-climb-y things you're bad at, deliberately and repeatedly, in hopes of getting better at them. Joe would like me to place my feet more carefully when I climb, instead of aiming above the foothold and sliding my foot down the wall toward it. So, okay, I'm on board with that idea. Place the feet attentively on the footholds. Got it.
But Joe did not assign me a footwork regimen; instead, he said, "Do you know what I think you should do? I think you should let me belay you on a route that's significantly above your level and just keep trying the moves with plenty of takes* in between."
*Takes = supported rests. The belayer holds you up while you shake out your arms and catch your breath.
Ooookay, said I.
The toughest route I've finished so far is a 5.10b, and Joe assigned me to climb a 5.10d. Not just any 5.10d, either -- a tougher-than-average 5.10d. One good thing about tackling something I knew I couldn't finish was that my expectations were low. The first chunk of it was manageable, and then I reached the Realm of Nope. The gateway to the Realm of Nope was the Maybe Bridge, where I fell on my first attempt at a tricky move but got it the second time. And then...I was all out of maybes. I tried doing the next move slowly; I tried doing it dynamically*. Joe was shouting advice from 20 feet below. "Don't do it that fast!" he said. "Don't wait so long while you're thinking about it -- trust the foot placement!" I was not able to find the Goldilocks spot between doing it fast and doing it slow, but I surely did work up a sweat trying. Joe wasn't sure he wanted to let me down. "One more good attempt!" he called up, and I gave it one more good attempt. "I think you should give it two more good attempts!" he yelled. "Joe, I am your MOTHER and I want you to let me DOWN," I said with a certain emphasis. (He let me down. He's a good boy. Just a little bossy sometimes.)
*Dynamically = you jump for a hold that you can't reach from where you're standing.
This evening my husband and I celebrated our 26th anniversary at a newish restaurant, owned by the fancypants Gladlyville restaurant group. We'd never been there before and it was thoroughly delightful: yummy food, pleasing decor, excellent company, happy conversation. I was grateful for a pleasant evening, because for the past couple of weeks we've been wrestling with the 2019 iteration of an argument we seem to have every summer without fail.
The two outings felt pretty different but I think they have something important in common: when you're aiming for a lofty goal, sometimes you hit a spot that feels too hard. Even if you shake it out and catch your breath and try some different approaches, sometimes it still feels like too much. Maybe it feels like everybody else is sailing upward, and you're the only one stuck at that spot, falling again and again. But a true fact about hard things is that they tend to yield to patient effort. Maybe not next time, and maybe not the time after that. But eventually something clicks and the thing that seemed impossible becomes doable. Year 27, day 1: color me optimistic.
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