How climbing changed me: looking back on a year-ish of climbing

Hopefully this reads as "How I've changed over the last year" rather than "Why climbing is the best". I started climbing a year ago last fall, and I've wanted to write this for some time, but I have never quite felt inspired, so I decided to just start writing it and see if inspiration comes. Maybe I'll throw up a bunch of pictures of me climbing to round it off.

I've been thinking recently about how climbing has changed who I am. I suppose to a degree anything you do changes you. Our brains and bodies are molded by the way we use them, so it's natural that what we do affects the way we experience the world. But I am noticeably different because of climbing. Let's talk about that.

Identity:

I miss those pants. 

This is one change I don't exactly love. I'm identified as a rock climber now. I've never liked being identifying as things. I just don't like being classified, so I sort of begrudgingly accept the title of rock climber. But it's true. I do it so often that it's what people know about me, and it's colored my life so heavily, that it's become a part of who I am. And to be honest, I love climbing. I might very well have been born for it. (I blame the monkeys we descended from.)

Posture:
I've never had good posture, and it's still not great, but rock climbing forces you up onto your toes and makes you to think about how you hold your body. I still slouch when I sit, but when I stand, I stand-up straight and am constantly balancing myself as I move. If I open a door, I flag my leg out to counterbalance. If I reach for something, I turn my body so I can do it without pushing myself off center. I've always been obsessive about not stepping on street cracks, but now I also balance myself and consciously place my feet where I want to, smoothly avoiding them. (Yes, I'm almost 26 and I still avoid stepping on cracks. I just don't want to be responsible for any spinal injuries to my mother.) All this to say, I'm slightly-aware of my body position all the time. This is what I imagine life would be like as a cat. It's sort of a weird thing, but it does mean I don't stumble as often.

Body Image:
One of the first thing I noticed when I started climbing is the relaxed self-assurance that climbers have. There are always exceptions, but most climbers just seem comfortable in their skin. It probably helps that a lot of them have ridiculously toned bodies, but I think it also has to do with climbing itself. Climbing forces you to be aware of your body, to observe your feelings and respond to them, and then to forget about your body and perform. It sort of forces you into your body, and I think that's where confidence comes from, when there's no separation between who you are and what you are. Instead of looking at your body as this foreign material that you have to dominate, it's an instrument for you to use. You become aware of the feeling of your body rather than the external perception of it, and it causes you to dominate the space you inhabit, because you own it. Is that zen enough for you?

There's a big long article about how the objectification of our bodies (with girls specifically) is what inhibits both confidence and capability by making people concerned with the external appearance rather than the internal experience. I think that has something to do with it.

So for the first time in my life I have some upper body muscle, which is good for body image, but I also feel very comfortable with my body just because I'm so aware of what I can do with it. And that's nice.

Confidence:

It sure does make phone calls seem
more approachable. 

Rock climbing is tough. And that's cool. Once after I struggled to finish a climb, my belay-partner pointed out that even if it was rough, I'm doing something almost everyone in the world can't. It's fun to be good at something, and it gives you courage to tackle other things. When I climb up the side of a mountain and stand on top of it, it's easy to feel like I can do anything, and so when I have to face something else hard, I can remember, "this is tough, but I climb mountains."

Courage:
In addition to the perspective, climbing has taught me how to deal with fear. Climbing is scary. There might be people who don't find falling at all scary, but in my experience, those people are the minority among rock climbers. (Maybe they don't last long.) Most rock climbers I know get scared, and many of them were once very afraid of heights. Part of rock climbing is learning how to master fear, and practicing that, and the way you master fear is the same whether you're making a move out above a clip on an exposed section of rock or talking to an intimidating stranger. For me, I take a deep breath, shake it out, let go of my fear and just act. It helps to sing a song while I'm at it.

This has been a big deal for me, because climbing is one of two things that scare me that I seek out on a regular basis (the other is dating girls), and I've had to learn how to deal with being afraid. Usually I deal with being afraid by going where I don't have to deal with being afraid, but there's something really empowering about recognizing fear and then dismissing it.

Trust:
Speaking of fear, I have trust issues. This isn't so much an effect of climbing as a realization. Climbing has provided a very clear metric of trust. There are a limited number of people who I trust with my life, and I know who they are. I can count them on one hand. I know I trust them, because when I'm climbing and I'm about to do something, I don't second guess myself based on whether they're going to catch me. And this isn't an intellectual question: I don't climb with anyone who I don't think will catch me (I have before, it's terrifying. Never do it.) This is a deeply emotional, instinctual condition. Am I comfortable with my life in their hands? It's a good lesson about trust in general. If you're hesitating because you don't know how someone will react to something, you probably don't really trust them.

Endurance:

Pictured here: my foot. And Tyler
By the way, not looking down is terrible advice,
because you should be always looking
at where you're placing your feet.
Just try not to internalize what's beneath them. 

This is actually something I'm currently working on. Climbing somehow becomes a microcosm for all my issues. I always want to rest when things get hard. One of the biggest things I need to learn now in climbing is just how to push on through difficult times rather than ease off. When I'm climbing and it becomes tough, I have a tendency to just give up, relax, plan my next move, and try again. This isn't a terrible life-strategy in general, but it limits what you can accomplish when climbing. Sometimes you just have to commit, push on, and hope that there's something better up ahead, because this particular part is tough, so it's probably a bad place to stop. I'm working on that. One of the hardest climbs I've ever done I approached planning to climb until I fell. I finished it without falling. (This was cool, but the whole point was to become more comfortable with falling. So in that sense it didn't help much. Maybe in another year I'll talk about how I'm comfortable with falling, and how that's symbolic.)

Perseverance:
On the other hand, I rock perseverance. I'm not sure how much climbing has changed this, but at some point in life I learned how to keep trying, and keep trying and keep trying. Bouldering particularly is an exercise in persistence. I've fallen off of problems dozens of times before I've finished them, and spent weeks working on a single problem. And I've gotten better. This is probably good for me, because I usually don't love taking on things that are challenging, because I like the feeling of being good at things. But the feeling of overcoming something difficult is even better.

Attraction:
This was sort of a recent realization, rock climber girls have become the default attractive body type for me. Luckily rock climbers don't actually have that weird of bodies, but I'm fairly certain most guys aren't primarily attracted to girls that could beat said guys in a pull-up competition. But at some point, girls with big biceps and steely forearms became the norm, so when I see girls with skinny arms I'm like, "That's weird. Why are your arms so thin?" I realized this from a stock image for an article about attraction that someone posted on Facebook (the second image below) and I've since became a little more aware of it.

Clearly a normally proportioned woman

An unfortunate*, skinny arm'ed waif

*Note, this shouldn't be read as a value judgement on differently proportioned girls. I just find it interesting how the girls you surround yourself with affect so strongly what you're attracted to. 


So that's how I've changed over the last year. It's been fairly positive.

Ooo, one more thing:
I want a climber kid. I've always thought having a little son would be awesome (for a long time, a dad pulling his son in a bike chariot summed up my life ambition), but now I have new, very specific excitement for parenthood: the ability to raise little monkey children.

Pictured here: little monkey nephew

Here's to climbing through another year.

You're nothin' but a sister!

So, I have this thing where I want to do things really really well, and so a lot of times they just don't end up getting done. So instead of a unbelievably beautiful posts about how awesome my sister is (really, just imagining it should bring you to tears), here's a list of ways Kate has changed my life (in no particular order).

Teaching me to wear clothes that fit.
Convincing me not to draw on my converse (I never did).
Upholding the name of Perkes with all the cool teachers at Murrah.
Introducing me to H&M.
Introducing me to deodorant. (when I was 11ish)
Introducing me to boxers. (Around the same time)
Basically doing all my art projects for me in school.
Teaching me how to decorate an apartment.
Teaching me that nausea is how all the cool kids deal with stressful social interactions.
Dressing me up in dresses as a little kid (I'm not actually sure if that changed my life or not. I guess we'll never know)
Giving me the heads up on some of the best and worst things about BYU.
Training me in the ways of dark colored pants.
Guiding my taste in music until today (Amy and Cami get a lot of credit for that too, but I still remember the first time I heard Bubble Toes in the car)
Instilling in me the idea that girls make the best friends (unlike a lot of lessons, I don't think this one was intentional, but it definitely stuck.)
Marrying a stellar brother-in-law.
Bringing 2 other cool boys into the family. (We're 10-0 since 1989!)
Consistently being my guide whenever I'm unsure of how to function as a normal person.

Happy birthday, Katie. Thanks for being such a great older sister my whole life.

A request

Dear readers,

Family, friends, acquaintances, strangers, and whoever may happen to read my blog,

You are wonderful.

Really. You are paragons of reason and moderation in a shockingly immoderate world. Oh sure, occasionally you'll post things on Facebook that make me cringe–sometimes I even point out why– but for the most part, I am constantly reassured by the collective honesty, integrity, and general consideration I see in the people I know.

Because there are people. There are so many people, angry, self-assured zealots, raging against all that is not them. Every incendiary blog post, every hateful youtube comment, every moronic tweet comes from some person, and that person is liable to vote, and lobby, and petition, and those are the voices that are heard–this screaming terror that drives our country.

So at 4 a.m. I had a realization. I can't in good conscience sit, idle and watch the narrative of this country, because it is horrifying. And I want to make it clear that I'm not talking about the moral degradation of society, or ebola, or the evils of liberalism, or conservatism or abortion or guns. I know for a fact that my readership is fairly split on these subjects, and I honestly think that our country is more safe, more healthy, and more free than it has ever been before.

 I'm talking about the story of our country, packaged by pundits and politicians and purchased by us. We are better than that–at least you are better than that–but while voices heard in comments and talk shows are these raging pseudo-sociopaths, that is the story that will be told.

So I may disagree with you about a lot of things, but I'm confident in your capacity for empathy and rational thought. So go be active, go to the source, consider issues thoroughly, conduct civil discourse and remember that people who disagree with you are not evil.

I do think most people are good and civil and thoughtful, but I think the people who shout loudest are the ones being heard, and those people don't seem good or thoughtful. Participate, online and in line, and convince more people like you to participate. If enough of us do, we might even get the narrative we need (because we will always get the narrative we deserve).

And go vote, because congress is a wreck and we chose every single one of them.

In which Ammon *doesn't* make a short list.

Wow, it's been a while.  I'd like to say that I've been so busy in my whirlwind of graduate school that I just haven't had time to update, but that's obviously not true.

The thing is, I always feel like in these big life changes that I should be able to say something incredibly profound, but more and more I realize that big life changes aren't incredibly profound, they just... are.

Summer ended, I left Utah and I moved to Philly and I found an apartment and I started grad school. It just sort of is. The profound bits are things that happen incidentally, like when I'm biking home from the climbing gym and ride under the Market Street Bridge at night, or when I skype with a professor in Canada and talk about the science we want to do together, or when I install command hooks on my very own* wall.  But those things don't really make good blog writing.

It's been almost exactly a month since I moved into my apartment, and I'm starting to settle in to my life here.  And it's good.  I love Philadelphia, grad school is wonderful, and everything I hoped it would be (except that we don't get paid until the end of September.  There've been some adventures in profound budgeting). All in all I'm feeling incredibly blessed.  Everything has come together with almost Buellerian serendipity.

So that's that.  I'll try to keep this up to date. Good luck, fellow adventurers.

(although, this)

*I'm still renting

A short to-do list to do in two short weeks.

I'm leaving Utah in less than two weeks.

I'll probably end up writing a fair bit about that because there's a lot wrapped around that sentence; in the mean time, I'm not done adventuring yet: this is everything I want to fit in before I leave.  I'm also open to suggestions.

Hike Mount Nebo
Climb Little Cottonwood Canyon
Climb Maple Canyon
Visit Lake Powell, cliff jump, deep water solo
Climb the first 8 Pitches of Squaw Peak
Bike the Alpine Loop one last time

and a shorter list of things I won't be able to do, but want to come back for:
Hike King's Peak
Mountain bike Moab
Climb the 22 pitches up to Squaw Peak

When I was in Havasupai on Friday, I found a canyon that I wanted to explore but couldn't, because I didn't really have the stuff I needed with me, and I was alone and I didn't want to injure myself doing something stupid. (We're up to 14 days since last accident!

I don't like leaving things undone, and I suspect there will be a lot of open parentheses left in Utah.

)

A short list of expensive things–checking in with Summer

I have a lot of spare time these days.  I'm doing a little bit of research, but mostly I'm just lounging around the house and making sandwiches to fill the time between amazing adventures.

Whilst lounging around the house and making sandwiches today, I realized there are a lot of expensive things I'm considering buying/doing.  It seemed like a good idea to share them, so here we are.

Ammon's Expensive Shopping List:
a DSLR camera
Why? because I'm 25 and moving to a city and a biologist told me to get a good camera and use it. (I might just buy a nice-ish digital camera and see if I use that for a while before dropping a ton of money on a thing I would likely drop while climbing some waterfall in the jungle on a field trip)
a new MacBook 
Because I'm going to grad school and I don't want all the cool kids to make fun of my old macbook.  (also because my computer is now old and my battery has some issues)
a trip to Portugal and nearby Europe
I've been putting off going to Portugal since I got home from Portugal.  Basically I figured that I would want to go with my wife and to see the temple when it gets finished.  Shockingly, however, I'm not currently dating anyone and they haven't even officially announced the site for the temple. These things do tend to drag on.  In any case, I think I'd better just stop waiting and save up some money.  The plan is next summer, if you want to come, as my wife or otherwise, let me know.  It's going to be a party. I hear there's deep water soloing.
An apartment in Philadelphia (or a house?) 
Obviously this will cost some money, although not as much as I thought.  For example, if I were willing to live several miles from campus (which I'm not), I could get a single unit for less than I'm currently paying to live in a 2 bedroom apartment with 4 people and an electric stove (I can't stand electric stoves).  Seriously though, I'm excited to have an apartment.  And I'm considering buying a place after I pay off my student loans.  I might just rent while I'm there, but home ownership has a certain ring to it, doesn't it?
A slew of rock climbing stuff: 
Let's be honest, I could spend an unlimited amount of money on climbing, next on my shopping list is a GriGri (which is a fancy thing designed primarily for looking cool.  It also functions as a belay device.) and some nicer shoes that fit me better. Compared to all my other $1000+ purchases, this seems downright reasonable.

In the mean time, I'm hiking Lone Peak tomorrow and then have upcoming return trips to Zion for Fat Man's Misery (this time with 80% less spooning) and Havasupai (probably with 100% fewer marriage proposals).

Oh, in related news, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is one of the best movies I've ever seen.

There may be many, many fathers. But there's only one that's mine

I was going to type out a long thing, and I still might, but I spent so much time looking for good pictures that I ran out of time to write anything right now.  If a picture is worth 1000 words, this thing is already over 9000 words long, so I don't want to overwhelm anyone.

Happy Fathers Day to my dad, the consummate renaissance man:

The Outdoorsman

The Adventurer

The Builder

The Chef

The Thinker

The Naturalist

The Husband

The Father

(That's my sister about to bite a snake.)

Happy Father's Day!  I couldn't have hoped for a better Father

(Not pictured here: The Comic, The Speaker, The Artist, The Teacher, The Bishop, or The Scare-House Designer.)