Remember

Remember that this weathered face of stone has occupied its place, here, for countless years prior to your showing up to climb it.

Remember, too, that after you are dust and the wind has scattered you across the map you once had memorized and "you" are nothing more than an out-of-focus face in the dreams of your grandchildren, it is overwhelmingly likely that it will, in fact, still be here, largely unaltered.

Thus, please embrace the meaninglessness of this peculiar endeavor before you tie in.

Consider what you are about to do as optional punctuation in the story of this place, and the question of whether you will send as a vaguely unfamiliar word that isn't quite worth looking up in the dictionary.

Yes, it is interesting, maybe even exciting, that your life is routinely saved by small pieces of aluminum jammed into minuscule wrinkles in the skin of a cliff.

No, it is not interesting or exciting in the slightest to those who do not take part in this peculiar endeavor.

The rock affords you a comforting solitude if you look for it. This is rare currency, and it is accumulating compound interest. Cherish and protect it.

If you must tell your tales, use a whisper, and choose your listeners with care.

Realize that not long after you get up and off the route, even the most vivid and demanding sequences will begin to blur together, your recounting of them requiring approximation and more platitudes than you would prefer. Consider that this might not be a bad thing.

This could be because on a good line, you are too busy living to record, or associate, or doubt, or compare.

Look at your partner. See the body and soul that are tied to you with knots in a taught cord. You have both decided to do this thing, which is meaningless, thankless, and thus wonderful. You are both here. Moving slowly over the same small chunk of earth, connected. You have found no comparable bond elsewhere.

So, climb.

Feel the weight of your body. It is yours. The only one you get. Stand on a millimeter. Appreciate that good footwork approximates surgery. Yes, that is your breath. Yes, everything gets easier when you remember that. No, there are not many sounds more soothing than the gate of a clipped carabiner shutting over the rope. Here is a crack in which your stacked fingers fit numbly. Here is a rough spot for your left foot, finally.

That is your partner's voice, encouraging. He is wearing a smile that you cannot see.

And fall, too. Slip, overreach, take, tremble, flounder, flinch, botch the sequence. Abide. Here is the source of your humility. Here is a benchmark for upward progress.

Be a student of the stone. Remember that on a winter afternoon, in intermittent sunlight, in a breeze blowing from an ashen sky, you can press against this rock, your adversary, your lover, and it will be warm. It gives.