1/21/2011
Today is the day I start writing again. It feels as though a part of my psyche that compelled me, almost aggressively, to put all of my thoughts, ideas, and emotions into words on a page was temporarily stifled by the starry-eyed, all-encompassing, allure of the process of falling in love. I say this at the risk of inducing nausea in friends and strangers, nonetheless, it is the simple truth. I have not fallen out of love after almost two years, quite the opposite is true, in fact. However, I do feel that I need to reconnect with a part of myself that has lain dormant most of these last two years.
That being said…I was looking through some photos from my recent three months in Europe this morning and I came across one that struck me as particularly evocative of a beautiful memory from that trip. The photograph is of an older man alone on a small rowboat in the middle of a lake rendered aquamarine by the morning light, followed closely by an eager flock of gulls hoping to benefit from his day’s bounty. I took this picture the first morning we woke in a village called Torricello on the banks of Lago Trasimeno in Italy. Having faithfully followed Lonely Planet recommendations for years, I read the description of a serene lake in the heart of Umbria surrounded by small villages and vineyards with some of the best olive oil in the country (this being November and the season for olive harvesting, new wines, and black truffles) and decided we had to make our way here. We arrived after dark on a chilly evening and starting making our way from the train station to the hostel with a good write-up in the Lonely Planet guide. As we were passing a few older men on the sidewalk, they saw the unsure looks on our faces and the backpacks and made the connection that we were looking for the hostel . One of them explained in very broken English that he thought the hostel was closed but that he might be able to contact the man that ran the place. As we followed him across the street a van pulled up that was coincidentally driven by the owner of the hostel, Giangiacomo (pronounced Jonjacamo, roughly). Giangiacomo did confirm that the hostel was closed for the slow season but that he had a bed and breakfast as well in which he could offer us accommodation. We were a little apprehensive about the price as it was at the very top end of our budget but we agreed to have a look at the room. On our way to the bed and breakfast Giangiacomo appeared to pause for a split second and change his mind about something, and turned to us with a smile and told us he was going to give us a present. I remember thinking he might give us a cheap bottle of wine or something along those lines; instead, he led us to the very top of a narrow marble stairway that led to another private wooden stairwell to a door marked with a little hanging wooden sign marked “Chambre”. I had a feeling that meant it would be something special and when he opened the door the room was actually a spacious, beautiful, and almost impossibly romantic suite, complete with a real, wood-burning fireplace and candlelit lanterns casting patterns on the walls. This was the “present” he was offering us, this unique and enchanting little apartment for the same price as the normal rooms, with the additional bonus of free daily bicycle rental. We didn’t even have to exchange a look to know we were sold.
Giangiacomo showed me outside to where the logs for the fireplace were stored and on the way he picked a pomegranate from a tree in the garden, split it open on a rock, and offered me the seeds. Could this scenario really be unfolding? I could have cried with the loveliness and romance of it all. Dave lit the fire and as we were sipping some local Chianti in front of the blazing fireplace there was a knock at the door, Giangiacomo with a little platter of food and bread he had brought, the two restaurants (yes, there were two restaurants in the whole village, which you could walk completely into and out of in about twenty minutes) in town having closed early. The plate contained a few things we could identify, namely dates, figs, roasted eggplant, some sort of cheese, and a few things we couldn’t but tried anyway. One of them we later found out was homemade truffle spread Giangiacomo had made from truffles he had foraged himself. The flavor quickly had us hooked and we had some of our favorite truffle dishes in Italy in Umbria, freshly made pappardelle and fettucini with shaved fresh black truffle and garlic…tastes of the earth and smoky richness exploding on one’s taste buds. Italy is truly a country of bounty, both in the hospitality of its citizens and the gorgeous cornucopia of flavors that embody its cuisine.
The next morning we rode our bikes first to a dock on the lake where we saw the lone fisherman, the only other human being in sight, embodying the serenity of Lago Trasimeno and the villages that cradle it. That day we took a bike path around the lake, strewn with little golden autumn perfect-shaped leaves like fallen stars and visited a vineyard in the next village, tasting something like a dozen local wines and weaving our way home with a backpack full of bottles we purchased for the equivalent of about $2.00 each…and they were excellent. The evening and the next four to follow were identical to the first, except we would switch off between the two restaurants for takeout dinner every night, being utterly incapable of convincing ourselves to have dinner out instead of snuggled in front of the fireplace with a bottle of local wine. I guess a picture really was worth about a thousand words in this instance, and I thank that old fisherman on the lake for blessing me today, in California, with the opportunity to revisit Torricello, Trasimeno, and Giangiacomo. Every picture has a story, and in turn every story attempts to paint a picture for its readers.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Climbing trip to Kalymnos, Oct. 2008
The whole journey commenced with an inconceivably drunken fourteen-hour ferry ride from Athens to Kalymnos, a Greek island situated close to Turkey’s west coast about 300km southeast of Athens and 100km northwest of Rhodes. With a year-round population of approximately 15,000, it is an island relatively untouched by the rampant tourism thriving on many of the islands scattered across the Aegean. Its economy is based largely on sponge fishing and the modest tourism it receives. A relatively recent influx of travelers consists primarily of climbers making the pilgrimage from far and wide to lay temporary claim to a small percentage of the island’s world-renowned sport climbing routes.
I was travelling with two English guys and one American and we had, in the spirit of unsullied holiday revelry, begun our well-intentioned climbing trip swilling Greek wine from two o’clock on throughout a prolonged lunch in the port of Pireaus, Athens. We felt compelled to erect a barrier between our collective sanity and the interminable boredom of an overnight ferry ride that has broken the spirit of many a stronger traveler than we. We found ourselves in a position that has become all-too-familiar to me in my disorganized travels, namely running for our five o’clock ferry in the hot sun with heavy rucksacks and a bag containing two on-and-a-half-litre plastic bottles of wine that we had, in admirable foresight, ordered from the taverna where we ate lunch. Said foresight did not, however, extend to obtaining any nutritional sustenance, the results of which were a liquid dinner.I have never been as bewildered in my entire life as I was upon waking at five o’clock in the morning in a bunk bed in what initially appeared to be an uncommonly cramped hotel room. After stumbling to the door and stepping tentatively out into the narrow hallway I came to the realization that I was, in fact, still on the boat. It was with the aid of this illuminating insight that my sluggish brain groggily retrieved the memory of the previous evening. I had wandered off for one reason or another and a compassionate member of the ferry staff had taken pity on me and escorted me to a cabin where I would not be a danger to myself or others.
Upon our arrival in Pothia, the port in Kalymnos, at sunrise we procured a taxi to transport us to Massouri, a village about fifteen minutes from the port by taxi and thirty minutes by local bus and which is in the closest proximity to the highest concentration of climbs on the island. We made inquiries about rooms of several bleary-eyed proprietors of studios in the area but there wasn’t much available in the high season for climbers. After three or four misses a woman working at what we later came to refer to as “Nice Lady Restaurant” phoned a friend of hers who was renting a couple of double rooms for eighteen Euros each (nine per person), per night. It was just across the road from Sakis Studios and conveniently above Maria’s Mini Market and the fresh spring water source.
This hotel doesn’t have a name; it is one of what is referred to generally as domatia (a word just meaning “rooms” in Greek), where a homeowner lets out a few rooms for a supplemental income. As one must climb quite a number of white cement steps to arrive at the accommodation, we christened our new abode the “Stairway to Heaven Hotel.” I can highly recommend the establishment as the balcony frames a remarkably picturesque sea view, fully equipped kitchenettes, consistent hot water, and a warm and hospitable owner that resides just above the rentals and might even surprise you with the privilege of her homemade pound cake.
Gavin was climbing at a higher grade than I, but not insufferably so, and John and Charlie were virtually equivalent in their climbing level, so we ended up pairing off that way for most of our climbs. John and Charlie put up top-ropes on more advanced routes for Gavin and I to struggle and curse our way up. The first route we did at Poets was a beautiful introduction to the Kalymnian rock, which is similar to that of the Krabi region in Thailand minus the frustration of polished, overly trafficked limestone. The atmosphere is distinct as well; absent of the cacophony that resonates distractingly in the highly concentrated clamour of jam-packed crags one can appreciate the rarity of stillness.
Most of the climbs in our vicinity were labeled at their starts in spray paint (a practice the credibility of which I am not entirely convinced) and the names were predominantly in English, Spanish, and Italian, despite the gentle request of the originators of sport climbing on the island (particularly Aris Theodoropoulos, the current editor of the guidebook) that future climbs, even those christened by foreigners, at least bear the names of Greek poets, gods, goddesses, or references to Greek mythology as a token gesture of respect to the native culture. Though this deviation is somewhat disappointing, it is hardly shocking given the usual ratio of Greeks to foreigners on any given day spent in the climbing areas on Kalymnos. During two weeks of near daily climbing on the island we encountered a grand total of two Greeks, and even those two were Athenians rather than Kalymnians. Having spent a substantial length of time in the Greek islands in the past couple of years, my impressions of the Greek culture do not reflect a society that tends to embrace the fitness ideology popularized in the late twentieth century, preferring in general activities such as cigarette-smoking, ouzo-sipping, and playing endless games of rapid fire backgammon to more physically strenuous leisure pastimes.
That first afternoon we climbed until the sun drifted lazily down behind Telendos (the diminutive island opposite Kalymnos) in a sky painted in sweeping furls of pink and gold reflecting on the face of the rock like a translucent layer of watercolour. All four of us were transfixed with the undeniable wonder of Greece, the boys for their very first time. For my part the moment inspired a rediscovery of that magic both through peering through their eyes and the reopening of my own. There was not even any need to speak; it was one of those elusive moments whose essence defies verbal communication.
We made our way in the last of that deep golden light beginning to saturate the evening down a trail that meandered as frequently as the minds of toddlers and stopped at “Nice Man’s Bar” for a few well-earned beers for the boys and a dangerously refreshing glass of wine for me. I must admit here somewhat abashedly that I am genuinely unaware to this day of the proper name of this noble establishment, but I’m certain it begins with an “F,” is directly to the left of a café called Drossia and sits opposite a bar owned by an English couple called “Claro’s.” One of the many nice things about Nice Man’s Bar (the owner’s name is really Sakis but the moniker “Nice Man” just suits him so perfectly) is that Nice Man himself or Nice Man’s Daughter, Petrula, will bring you a little bowl of peanuts with every round of drinks, which after a long day climbing are like salty little morsels of heaven. They are also complimented unexpectedly well by a crisp, dry white with a light bouquet. Who knew?
The next couple of weeks were composed of more of the same, breakfasts on our huge and blissfully private balcony gazing out at the sea, its azure blue splendour overlapping the bloodshot mist of our eyeballs to form a pleasing lavender hue, followed by long days of some of the best and most varied climbing I have experienced to date and finished with sublime Greek cuisine with Mythos beer and local white wines to wash it all down.
One afternoon we had the brilliant plan of beginning a five pitch climb at quarter past five in the evening which, predictably enough, expanded into something of an epic. Charlie and I were forced to bail at the start when I couldn’t get up the first 6B pitch; I swallowed this shortcoming like a bitter pill not fully aware at the time that I would be regurgitating it with a large degree of humility and a small degree of humiliation at a later date. More cognizant of my own starring role in the failed endeavour I really could not be.
Charlie and I enjoyed another glorious sunset and relaxed chatting on a couple of rocks as we awaited John and Gavin’s heroic return. Apprehension only set in after the last of the daylight had long seeped from the sky and we were picking out constellations and wondering if the light they were emitting would be sufficient to illuminate a treacherous down-climb. We admitted reluctantly that it categorically would not. As the night crept on I began to acknowledge, along with my concern for the boys’ welfare, a distinct gratefulness for my failure to complete the first section of the multi-pitch, thereby avoiding whatever pratfalls John and Gavin were undoubtedly encountering somewhere above us in the dark.
After what seemed like an eternity, we spotted our comrades descending, their headlamps creating falling stars cutting a jagged line in the tarry blackness as they lowered. They regaled us with tales of a sparsely protected third pitch of doom, anchors that tickled brevity with the creeping fingers of doubt, and razor-sharp and generally distasteful climbing throughout. To top it all off (literally), there was apparently a nightmare search for the lower-off, bearing in mind that Gavin’s “headlamp” was in reality a flashlight clutched in a lockjaw provoking death grip while making his way first up the last pitch and then along a nearly nonexistent path to the elusive top anchor.
Even I was happy to forgo a shower that evening, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had consumed nine hours earlier having long ceased to sustain me, so we staggered into “Fountain Restaurant,” AKA Noufaro, around quarter to ten, depositing all of our gear in an untidy heap outside the entrance and collapsing around the closest table.
A couple of days later we took a charter boat across to the island of Telendos to climb with fourteen others, the expedition having been arranged in advance by an extraordinarily garrulous English woman whose path seemed to coincide with ours at a frequency of which we were not entirely comfortable. The climbing was spectacular there, despite an unpleasant encounter Gav and I had with a hornets’ nest inhabited by particularly ornery residents at the top of our second climb of the day. First Gavin was stung while trying to clip the anchor (“Lower!! LOWER FASTER!!!”), followed by my quick-draw rescue attempt failing as two of the reprehensible little beasts alit on my cheek and a third circled threateningly around my head. The whole ordeal ended on a comic note with John valiantly making the ascent to retrieve the quick-draw with his pants taped and a Polartec fleece zipped to his chin on a particularly hot and sunny afternoon, the route this third time around being remarkably devoid of its previous evil population.
The tempting proximity of the sea rendered it impossible for me to resist a refreshing post-climb skinny dip during which, somewhat regrettably, the aforementioned loquacious British climber happened to pass, even stopping for a casual chat as she made her way back to the boat. Predictably by the time I arrived (fully clothed) at the charter every other passenger had heard tell of my brief aquatic indulgence. The boat ride back from Telendos as the sun melted in the pale blue stained-glass panes of the dusky sky was not soon to be forgotten, if ever, and should be listed as a requisite before one exits this unique circle of jewel-like islands, or island-like jewels of Greece.
It is this type of experience that those on a rock-climbing holiday to Kalymnos should take the time to relish along with the obvious joys of the beckoning limestone. Rest days on the island are usually spent in blissful repose on the beach and drifting in the rejuvenating waters of the Mediterranean Sea. One of the only negative aspects of time spent in Kalymnos is that it does, for most of us, eventually have to come to an end.
When that day came for us we reminisced about our far-too-brief retreat and what we would take away from the experience. John and Charlie had accomplished the majority of their climbing aspirations and accomplished even more comprehensively their secondary goal of smoking as many cigarettes and drinking as much beer as possible during their time in Greece. John did fail to attain the harness tan lines of which he had daydreamed back in the gloomy UK, and Gavin left glowing the exact shade of paper white with which he had arrived. But all in all, enough war stories, sweat jokes, and tales of tragedies averted had accumulated to entertain even the most discerning of listeners. Kalymnos is a destination to which one will undeniably be drawn to return again and again, not only for the astounding array of exceptional sport routes, the simple, fresh, and wonderful cuisine, and stunning scenery, but for the beautiful, embracing characteristic of a community of locals, arms overflowing with bend-over-backward hospitality and boundless generosity.
When I left the Stairway to Heaven Hotel on my final day on the island and rang the doorbell to give the owner, Roula, a hug and a kiss goodbye, she didn’t inquire as to whether I would be returning to the island at some point. After she bade me a fond farewell and thanked me she said simply “Tha se tho tu chrono, kukla,” which means “see you next year, honey.” And she will. Kalymnos is a peaceful and sun-drenched island paradise for climbers and non-climbers alike; how could one help but want to re-experience such a place year after year? I ask only this of the potential reader… if you get there before I have a chance to revisit, send my love to Nice Man and Brimley Girl.
High Times (July 2008)
High Times
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My introduction to rock climbing was somewhat unusual in the respect that I tried it on something of a whim travelling in Thailand this past winter after inadvertently stumbling into one of the international meccas of sport climbing in Tonsai, in the Krabi province. I landed in Tonsai on the advice of a friend and planned to stop there for a couple of days and then move on to delve into the islands of the Andaman Sea for a few weeks, possibly train for my diving certification. Six weeks later with a few newly acquired muscles, a close-knit and varied group of friends with whom I had bonded both on and off the rocks, and a road atlas of multicoloured bruises and scrapes artistically scrawled across my body, I finally, reluctantly departed, amidst the ubiquitous shouts of “Au Nang, Au Nang!” and “pineapple, pineapple, donut!” echoing along the stretch of palm trees and bamboo mat scattered bars lining the beach. I was there long enough that at my last dinner at my favourite restaurant they made me a “goodbye cake” as a symbol of their well wishes. To be precise, with the lack of ovens and the absence of said confection in traditional Thai cuisine, it was actually a large, American-style pancake with “Good Luck” painted on it in chocolate frosting complimented by an ingenious rose garnish carved out of a tomato with lettuce forming its leaves. Ahh, Thailand, how I miss you and your quirkily incongruous menu items aimed at comforting homesick farangs . But I digress.
The second of January was the day of my initiation to the sport of rock climbing. I remember specifically because I was scheduled for the morning climb on the first but when I showed up fifteen minutes early (somewhat heroically, I thought, as I had celebrated the dawning of the new year downing buckets of vodka and Red Bull and dancing on the beach) the Thai guys from the climbing school were all too grimly hungover to do anything but laze red-eyed in the hammocks drooping from the wooden beams on the porch and told me to come back the next day. As I recall, in my last clear memory of Wee from the previous evening (I had met some of the boys from the climbing school the day before) he had an enormous spliff dangling from his lip and a bottle of Jack Daniels in each hand from which he was alternating swigs, so if that was indicative of the level of revelry perhaps I would be better off not being 25 meters above the ground with a still-wasted climbing guide shouting whiskey-muddled instructions from below.
The next day I went out for a half day top-roping course with a (presumably sober) instructor named Sol and a few other climbing hopefuls. Inwardly I was bitterly cursing my flip flop that had disloyally broken the day before as we hiked over the RAZOR sharp rocks that low tide reveals on the way to Eagle Wall, the crag where we would be climbing that day. We arrived at a tiny jewel of a beach which we crossed into the dense jungle forming its lush backdrop. The crag itself was easily accessible from here from a thickly rooted dirt pathway aided with a rope thoughtfully placed though of dubious reliability.
We had two climbs, one graded a 5 and to its right a long and beautiful 6A called “Spiderman”. The exact details of the rest of the day after my hands and toes (clad in my borrowed, unfamiliar, and uncomfortably restrictive footwear) made that first contact with that mesmerizing limestone are irrelevant. After that first injection of the adrenaline-releasing exquisite high where you are clinging with precarious balance to a rock face high above the ground, and there is no map laid out to trace your tentative steps, and you are trusting your body weight on a foothold the size of a non-genetically modified peanut, and you are willing the moisture forming on your palms to evaporate because you are not yet fully aware of the presence of a little drawstring bag of chalk hanging at your waist for the express purpose of combating said symptom, and your muscles are strained to capacity, and a little rivulet of blood is making its way down your left shin, and there is no other place to go but UP...in the words of the Flaming Lips “suddenly everything has changed”.
I might add for background information that prior to my washing up on a long tail boat on the sands of Tonsai Beach I had been on what one might refer to as a bit of a wander. I had left the United States in November, 2006 to relocate to the small and absurdly picturesque Greek island of Mykonos based on the sort of wispy reasoning that can, if lassoed and combined with the proper timing, catalyze change, namely a loosely placed anxiety about the possibility of “missing out” on something as I whiled away my not-unpleasant days in the lovely beachfront community of Narragansett, Rhode Island and an intense desire for adventure, to open some mysterious box containing sparkling newness. I spent eight months in Mykonos initially, and as the novelty eroded and the sometimes empty, alcohol-saturated reality emerged in the spring I returned to the United States to re-evaluate and recharge my finances.
After three months back in Narragansett busily shaking martinis and batting my eyelashes for the twenty percent tips so crucial to my travel funds, I was as perplexed as ever. I had some money (thank you, eyelashes) and I knew precisely where I did not want to be, the trouble only being that I had not the vaguest idea of where I did want to be, or what it was that I wanted to do when I got there. The idea of whiling away a bitter white winter in New England twiddling my frost bitten thumbs and slipping into one of the existential crises into which I tend to submerge after too much idle time in America was less than appealing, as was the prospect of another soul-crushing red wine-drenched winter in Greece, from which the previous one my liver was still recovering. I found myself online for hours on end, my hands almost of their own avail typing in cheap flight search engines, and after all the accumulated daydreams and ticket prices solidified in a perfect puzzle piece configuration I had in my possession a ticket that would take me back to Greece for two months, Spain for two weeks, New Zealand for two weeks, Australia for one month, three months in southeast Asia, and back to Greece in the spring. Some entrance of credit card details, an exhilarating click on the “submit” button, and my next ten months or so were laid out before me, just waiting to be lived.
When I arrived in Thailand I had, needless to say, been to some pretty spectacular places and accumulated what felt like about four years of experience in four months. Spain was my time of rampant indulgence, filled with endless pitchers of sangria and tapas in Valencia, though I left with a slightly sour taste after being robbed in broad daylight in Barcelona. I had the time of my life hitch-hiking my way first through the jaw-dropping austerity of the south island of New Zealand and then about half the east coast of Australia in a rapid fire montage of pale rainbowed waterfalls, pristine aquamarine lakes and endless beaches, rugged snow-peaked scenery, sleeping under the stars in Castle Hill in New Zealand bundled like a mummy in my sleeping bag, catching a 13-hour lift from Byron Bay to Nararra with a truck driver named Shane and then body surfing on Terregal Beach in Australia on Christmas Day, and all of it was so free, so ME; I was utterly untethered and floating somewhere new and joyous every day. And what had I lost but monotony? And what had I gained but the world?
In that same spirit of enchantment, in the giddy heights of discovery, I climbed my very first rock in Tonsai. Again I had many choices laid out in the crevices and intricate indentations of the limestone I gripped, only this time the destination was a set point, a tangible ring-shaped goal that begged to be tapped in triumph. Here was a turning point, a solid threshold to reach demanding not only my attention but the utmost physical and psychological determination. Every sport-related cliché gained relevance: wanting something so desperately “you could taste it”, “adrenaline junky”, the word “addiction” assuming new and oddly positive associations. I would find my mind wandering at breakfast during the interminable wait for a bowl of porridge (my God, what were they DOING back there, sowing the oats?) contemplating whether there might be a handhold further to the right I had overlooked in the crux of a particular route and I would wake in the middle of the night to find my fists sweatily clenched and my feet pressing soft craters in the sheets, struggling, even in my dream state, to reach that elusive pinnacle.
Those six weeks in Tonsai were a special time in my life. I did some more climbing in Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand and in Vang Vieng, Laos and spent some time in Cambodia before returning to Mykonos, and the climbing was lovely and peaceful, absent of the throngs of climbers in cue for popular routes, classes of beginners, and the odd chubby German tourist clicking voyeuristic shots in the Ibiza-reminiscent resort of Railey Beach adjacent to Tonsai, but nothing could compare to the splendour of the Krabi limestone.
Back in Greece I was struck with another impasse. My savings were dwindling at an alarming rate into the “dire straits” category, made even more painfully acute by the transition from the Cambodian real to the euro in the most expensive place in Greece. Two of my best friends from home had met me in Athens upon my return from Thailand, and although we spent a wonderful ten days together in Mykonos my return to a static state caused a loss of inertia that was sadly punctuated by their departure. There I was in this veritable island paradise with nothing to climb, nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no one in whom to confide my seemingly self-indulgent melancholy. Close to broke but not yet ready to go back to the States, I gathered my wits about me and secured a decent job at a taverna on the beach and proceeded to work every day for the next three months without a break to climb, write, or even think, functioning on the automatic pilot level that allows us to accomplish what we need but don’t necessarily want to do. At the end of that ridiculously overworked, underpaid, and drearily mundane period I was mysteriously “let go” from my job following an incident involving my informing a feeble-minded male associate that wiping glasses was not, in fact, “women’s work”. When the initial flood of upset and self-righteous indignation subsided it was time to weigh options yet again, and what I kept coming back to was the idea of being somewhere where I would be treated as a human being, somewhere I had contacts with good people, somewhere that wasn’t the United States, and somewhere I could, once again, dig my fingers into an unyielding, strength-affirming rock surface, not on which to vent my accumulated frustrations but with which, in the pure balance of mind and body it created, to render them obsolete.
Five days later I had a stuffed backpack once again, the climbing shoes and chalk bag were still clipped to the outside of the rucksack, the carabiner grown sticky with with moisture and the gathering sad dust of disuse, and I was on a plane to England. Since arriving here three weeks ago I have formulated and discarded several plans, and even now as I sit in the Botanical Gardens in Sheffield in the Peak District of England I find myself pulled in several different directions still, all seemingly equidistant. I have not only donned my climbing shoes again with a resurgence of my initiatory enthusiasm to learn the delicate art of trad climbing here in the pretty rolling hillsides of the English Midlands, with the same sense of renewal and a startling ripple of inspiration like a pebble dropped in a still lake I have finally picked up my long discarded notebook and pen, perhaps metaphorically recovered from that same corner of my bedroom in Mykonos where my climbing gear was gathering dust. Both activities open a valve for me to allow release, both challenge the very aspects of my being I strive most to improve, and both occasionally cause my hands to cramp in exhaustion. Even as I continue my gypsy-tinged vagrancy, I have grasped something even more solid than the intriguing English gritstone, and that something is self, and it is what serves to keep us grounded however high we may ascend.
I remain uncertain of which direction my path will meander next, but when I look up at those gorgeous routes etched in multi-layered stone stretching up to the mercurial English sky, rarely following a straight-line sequence themselves, I am sure of one thing. Wherever I may be in this world, and whatever magnets of the north, south, east, or west poles exert the most powerful pull on me, there is one direction in which I will be perpetually drawn, and that direction is UP.
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