I’m beginning to worry I don’t know how to live without chaos. We’ve made it through the longest nights of winter. But it’s still winter. My husband caught COVID, so I did as much as I could while I was still testing negative. This included taking my nieces rock climbing and ice skating for one […]
For a while I didn’t like teaching the learn to climb classes at Cornell because I felt like I didn’t really have anything to teach. That said, I’m stupid because this is all you really need to know when you’re first learning to climb: I guess I have at least two things to teach, then.
All I want for Christmas is to climb forever. I want to see all of the high places. I hope for the holidays you find a passion that leads you to new heights, metaphorical or literal.
Sometimes I feel like I spent years waiting on someone or something. These days I try not to. These days if I want to do a thing, I just do it, with or without someone to do it with. This is hard. I know we are pack animals at heart, but I think about all […]
Sometimes I struggle to have things to say if I don’t have a photo to back it up. Like this week, the only pictures I took the entire week were of a display of donuts so I could decide which to order while I ate my breakfast and a photo of my boss demonstrating prusik […]
Sometimes the weeks feel like a flip book. The pages go by and make a movie but it’s gone in seconds. You flip through again and again. It’s a whir of pictures. Occasionally it stops. Usually in high places, after hard work. Let’s be honest, usually it’s when climbing. That’s why I do it. Like […]
I have so many things to say. Things to say about taking advantage of nice weather at the end of October, about squeezing in adventures, about having restless leg syndrome of the soul. Is that a thing? It’s a thing now. But really what I want to say is that driving into the office on […]
Sometimes happiness feels like a broken heart. It’s like that sad song you love, it’s like crying when you’re happy, laughing at a funeral. Joy and sorrow are so close, and inescapably human. I was so happy these days in Indian Lake that it broke my heart. I kept asking myself what we did to […]
The rest of the time, I do what I have to. – Cicero, The Gladiator (2000) After 8 hours at my regular job I feel completely worn out and can’t get any sleep at night. After 55 hours teaching a weekend long outdoor rock climbing class I feel completely worn out and get the best […]
Religious folk say suffering is good for the soul. I don’t know about that but I know that the suffering you take on yourself is good for the mind. Sometimes it’s called type 2 fun. Sometimes it’s like this: life is hard and so you make yourself suffer on purpose so the hard things don’t […]
