I’ve decided to go back to my old blog, anklebiter.net, and grab some writing I did when my man-children were mere babes. The other day I was reading through some of the old posts on my own, and I thought to myself, well, if I’m enjoying this, maybe my readership would enjoy it too. Plus, Pull-ups in the Basement is all about the motherhood and rock climbing which I haven’t been writing about much lately because, well, my kids are old now and mothering is weird.
Although, the four of us did go to the gym together the other day, and it was one of my favorite things, but there isn’t a whole lot to share– I took no pics or videos, booo. My men bouldered around on hard stuff, but they humored me with grins when I’d “jump” off an easy boulder problem to see how my ankle took it. Testing out my ankle was fine and very boring, but the next necessary step in gaining courage to try harder problems. I miss bouldering.
ANYWAY, rewind to October 2004, and our first trip to the New with little baby Seb:
Brian and I had convinced ourselves (well, I know I had, and it seemed to me that Brian had too) when Seb was all brand new and shiny that climbing routes with ropes and gear and packs, etc., was going to be way too complicated for our already baby-complex lives, so we decided to put off going to the New River Gorge for a while. Early this summer, we decided we wanted to take a climbing trip that would involve camping but not flying so we could keep it cheap. In August, we thought we’d go south but decided it would be too humid and yuck and far. In September, we thought we’d go to the Boston area and visit family and friends on the way but decided that would be too buggy and yuck and far. So to get rid of the too far factor, we settled on going to the New in October, thinking we’d mainly go bouldering and maybe climb a few routes, ropes and all, for one day.
Well, it turned out that we spent two “days” (a day of climbing has been redefined to about four hours with a baby in tow) climbing routes, and it would have been three had we not spent THAT day bush whacking some non-existent trail to find the crappiest rock in the whole gorge (Bubba City sucks! Never climb there!). Gearing up to do some long(er) climbs wasn’t any more complicated than bouldering. It was so good to tie into a rope. At Summersville, one area near the New Brian and I had almost completely climbed out back in the day, I felt at home and a cozy warmth enveloped me as I climbed rock that will never lose its familiarity, taking a moment at the top to look out over the lake and fall colors below me. It was SO GOOD to be back, even if I was just climbing the easy routes. We met up with friends we hadn’t seen in two years at least (Kath-a-leeen!), and made new ones I hope to see again. Experiencing friends meeting Seb for the first time was really cool, and they confirmed our suspicions that he is the cutest kid ever.
Now we’re home, and it’s sort of lonely after having all those people around. So in the quiet, while Seb is taking a nap and Brian is still at work, I sit and daydream about going back to the New, tying into the sharp-end of a rope, and climbing up and up and up.
