Facing Fear

One of the activities I used to enjoy a lot, that I'm thinking of taking up again in the spring is climbing.  I used to love free climbing the yellow sandstone in the South of France and the funny chicken drumstick shaped pillars in Spain.  Although I could never compare myself to the climber in the following video, it did remind me of the simple joy of pushing myself to achieve something.  Going beyond the boundaries that I knew, exploring, challenging myself physically and strategically.  I am doing that here in America in different ways, learning how to cook healthy and nutrious, and tasty meals. 

Exploring new terrain, the thought of climbing out local mountain keeps flashing through my mind from time to time.  There is something that brings you very close to the outdoors, whilst climbing.  It's perhaps the feeling of your face and body pressed against a rock face, or the smell of the heat and the dirt, pungent and close.  Surfing the ocean is akin, in the sense that you are surrounded by water, enveloped in the nature you are exploring.  Both quite wonderful feelings.  At times heart stopping, but exhilirating once you find your peace with being in a place of vunerability, learning and respecting the terrain or tide.  I have had this yearning to push myself again, there is something in me that wants to keep pushing and achieving, to look back and smile with relief that I have conquered something.

I remember the first time I skied down a black run in France, it was the most difficult terrain on the glacier and it was foggy, so foggy we couldn't see very far ahead, just one person infront.  As a team we skied down in section, slowly and carefully following the one ahead.  We all did it, we all conquered that run.  The folowing day we were excited to try this again.  As the clear bright sky lit up the black run on this second morning, we all looked with fear at what we had the previous day conquered in the fog.  What was almost a 90 degree vertical decent, had been masked by the gentle clouds, now it looked like a monster, we hadn't even realised we had skied down it!  Two of us tried to take the slope on again, we made it half way and cut across to a different route, a cross country route - flat as a pancake, so instead of the extreme decent, we got the extreme quadricep work out! 

I always wonder if I could have decended and completed that route again without injury, or if without the cloud cover my fear would have got the better of me.  I love that fear doesn't get the beter of this guy!!!  It makes me want to stamp on fears face, but it also makes me wonder.