On Climbing and Connection: Field Notes from a Nashville Counselor
“What is alive in me today?” I wondered as I sat down to write, and closed my eyes to listen. My ears quickly picked up the high-pitched notes of chirping birds and the whooshing sound of speeding cars. I sent my attention to my breath, aiming to “drop in,” as my teachers and peers from the Gestalt community might say. I started to notice a tingling in my nose and then tears in my eyes. In response I inadvertently tightened my throat and tensed muscles throughout my body, my default method for deadening sensation. Aware of this, I deliberately softened. I pressed my seat and my back into my chair and let my head rest gently, feeling support already beneath me. Tears kept coming, then a smile, and eventually soft laughter. One wave rising and falling, another behind. I became keenly attuned to the fullness of gratitude expanding within. I was grateful.
Out Beyond Nashville
The beautiful Foster Falls.
A group of folks from my rock climbing gym had planned a day trip to Foster Falls, about an hour and a half southeast of Nashville, and this past Sunday I left my house at 6:15am to get to the designated carpool spot. In another installment of “I’m turning into my parents,” I followed my family’s “We can all fit in one car!” tradition and managed to fit four passengers plus all of our hiking and climbing gear into my little Prius, and we hit the road. Conversation flowed, ranging from “what do you do job-wise?” to past outdoor adventures to spirituality to ecology and the interconnectedness of all things.
We met up with a few more friends at the trailhead parking lot, and continued on. We stopped at the overlook on the rim to gaze at the waterfall below, then descended maybe 60 or so feet down a steep trail to the bottom of the gorge. Just past a suspension bridge, we stopped once again, now at the pool below the fall. The sound was much louder up close, and the sunlight hitting the mist off the fall made a lovely rainbow just off to the left. Pics and a brief swim ensued, then we continued on our way.
The climbs at Foster Falls are set into sandstone bluffs, with bolts and anchors set into the rock. To ascend safely, a lead climber clips gear into the bolts, then runs the rope through as they move upward, bolt by bolt, until they reach the anchors. While the lead climber is climbing, their belayer is on the ground below, managing the rope with a device to give the right amount of slack and to keep watch for anything notable relative to safety and success.
I like to say that climbing is a group project. The person on lead, or on top-rope once the rope has been set in the anchors, literally has their life in the hands of the belayer. And while others below are sometimes just hanging amongst themselves, they also can and do participate with the climber and belayer as well. Sometimes they’ve been on the route before and have ideas for how to move through a difficult section. Sometimes they notice something the belayer didn’t see but the climber needs to know. Sometimes the person leading isn’t able to get from one bolt to the next because there’s a difficult move they can’t do or don’t want to risk trying, or maybe they’re simply too tired to continue. In these cases, it’s pretty common for another climber (or sometimes two or three) to finish setting up the rope.
Attention, Risk, and Accomplishment
Whenever it was my turn on the wall, I narrowed my focus to position, placement, and breath, my eyes scanning up and down, ears alert for words of importance. Each move requires attention, and is by now to me a familiar dance of risk and trust. Climbing feels almost meditative, and I love this about the sport.
Me, in green, up high on Saturated.
My one lead of the day was Saturated, a 90 foot climb that’s considered easy, compared to what I’m capable of. That being said, being outside and being on lead each elevate the risk (and fear), and that’s always a consideration when I decide what to climb. On this route I trusted myself and my belayer, and we formed our own call-and-response as I moved up. “Clipping,” I’d call out when placing the rope, and he’d respond “I got you!” “Your left foot is behind the rope,” he called out, and I responded “Thank you!” and rearranged my position. It was reassuring to know that someone was with me, even as I was also alone up high. I pretty easily finished this route, and was rewarded with an amazing view and a strong sense of accomplishment.
Others led routes I then climbed on top rope. Halfway had a beautiful rest spot in the middle and a tucked-in cave by the anchors I could have spent hours in. Ankles Away was just my style – balancy with small holds for just the pads of your fingers. Moonscape was short and sweet, on a corner, with a difficult final sequence that I struggled on. And finally, Miss Scarlet was a challenge to start and then required several powerful, committing moves; I loved getting to the top of this one.
Gratitude for What Holds
On this long day, my climber friends and I were together from sunrise past sunset, and in this time did only 5 or 6 actual climbs. We also drove to and from the park, hiked in and out of the gorge, and stood or sat around when it wasn’t our turn go up. In all these hours there was the chance to show, watch, and listen to one another, to teach and learn from one another. We had the chance to challenge and encourage one another, to celebrate our successes and commiserate about the times we struggled or did not finish. And we we had the chance to get to know each other more.
The short version of a longer story is that I am at 47 years old climbing with folks mostly in their 20s and 30s. Sometimes there are others in their 40s and occasionally in their 50s. I joke about being the old woman at the gym, but truthfully I don’t mind. It has been fun getting an opportunity to spend time with people I wouldn’t likely have met anywhere else. I’ve already been the age of those who are younger, and with any luck someday they’ll be 47 too, and I really will be old. I feel in some ways both inside and outside of their worlds and of my own, relative to age and stage of life. I realize this is a strange thing to say, as if the experience of an age is a monolith, as if what’s theirs and what’s mine could ever truly be separate. Truthfully, we are far more connected than we know, and what we do with respect to those connections matters.
I am struck by how important it is that we take or better said use time to be together with people, outdoors when possible, at least mostly apart from the screens that demand our attention and separate us from each other and manipulate our lives for someone else’s profit. In climbing we place our hands and feet on rock that is all-at-once ancient and present and turning into future*, and we place our all-at-once past, present, and future selves into the hands of our fellow humans. In climbing and in life, no foothold or handhold or rock or breath or next moment is a guarantee. We accept the risk and sometimes reality of a fall, a disagreement, or a difference, and at the same time we trust just enough that there will be something and/or someone that holds, that together we may find or make something of beauty. This simple, sacred connection is what brings gratitude from the depths to the edges of my skin, good tears spilling out.
*(See Jenny Odell’s Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond Productivity Culture for a fascinating read on time. It is her work that pointed out to me the all-at-once ancient-, present-, and future-ness of rock.)
Lynnette Hope, LPC-MHSP, provides counseling in Nashville to help women who feel overwhelmed and off-balance find ease, clarity, and connection. She spent the first five years of her counseling career at a university counseling center, and since 2013 has been a self-employed owner of a solo counseling practice. She specializes in anxiety therapy, midlife growth and empowerment, and young adults and college/graduate students. You can learn more about her work here.