Getting Back to Climbing, Week 13: Reminiscing About Yosemite

 The first time I visited Yosemite was in 2006, when John and I went to climb...

John & Me, 2006, classic Yosemite scenic view.

From my climbing journal:

April 2006 (I didn't date the entry more than that)


Tuesday morning I am in the bathroom at camp (we camped in one of the pines campground the first year, before we started sleeping in Camp 4), and it is really freakin' cold.  The water in the bathroom faucet can only be one degree above freezing, any colder and it would freeze.  So, I am finishing washing my face, hands and teeth - when in walks this girl, about ten or eleven years old.  She is wearing this footy-type tie dye pajama get-up.  She starts to wash her hands in the near freezing water, and I ask her how she slept last night.  She said, "fine, but I have to wear my mom's shoes".


So, I look.  There she is... this tie dyed girl with these huge grey running sneakers sticking off her feet. She looked mortified; not about the tie dyed jumpsuit ensemble (which she probably chose and thought looked great), but about 'mom's' shoes (which she didn't choose).


"Well, sometimes that happens, and it is better than your socks getting filthy."  I really didn't know what else to say... maybe I should have told her that 'they were like the coolest sneaks ever, and I can't believe your mom loaned them to you'?  Yeah, that would have way been better, wish I had said that.


As I am writing this I am actually remembering how it felt to be so self-conscious that you think a stranger (a climbing dirt-bag stranger who hadn't showered in days), in a bathroom, at the crack of dawn, is noticing your shoes.




When I think about that exerience now, and how that girl felt, it makes me think about how it feels being a parent. Sometimes I feel like everyone notices every little thing about how we raise the Kid, and I feel self-conscious and insecure.  Parenting is almost like being a teenager all over again; awkward, confusing and insecure.  However, just like that teenager stage, as parents we make it to the other side... again.

This week's "getting back to climbing" update...
The Kid and I made it to the rock climbing gym twice this week, Monday and Wednesday.  Monday was a Jupiter gravity day, and everything I touched felt like V-Impossible.  But, then Wednesday came around... and the gravitational pull of the Earth changed to that of Mercury.  I sent one of my projects; one of the over-hanging, big move boulder problems I have been working for months.  Even the new projects I was working felt good.  Everything just flowed... and I am beginning to think that I have made it 'back to climbing' and may need to change the name of these posts.

On Saturday, John, the Kid, and I watched some of our old climbing videos from 2004.  That was fun, and I may have to put some up here, so you can get a good laugh.  So check back, follow this blog, and see where we take you.