The Brink

The Brink

In the corner of my mind, there remain some foggy and distant memories of this climb. The memories are diluted and washed out but the scent of them remains – caught in my nose. I am sure I have been here before because it is all so familiar.

The climb is significant and a bit daunting. I know that now because I am in the middle of it just as I am sure that I remember it as being so from the times I did it before.

The first few hundred feet are the worst because the rocks are loose and the footing is unpredictable. When I try to think back to those vaguely troubling memories of the three times I trudged up this mountain before, I believe I remember having fallen repeatedly at the start the same way I fell this time. Getting a little headway and then sliding back down to the bottom, maybe making it a hundred feet before a boulder lets loose and tumbles with me back down to the bottom, or slipping and sliding in the muck of unpredictability with nowhere to slide back to but the bottom. The climb has always been hardest at the beginning because of the frustration of working so hard only to find yourself back where you started – at the beginning.

But, once you get past the first couple hundred feet, it gets better. The footing improves and there are ledges to catch you when you slip. I remember slipping back down through the middle part of the climb as well, but it always seemed OK because there was enough topology below me that I could never possibly slip all the way back to the start again. Just keep the course, slip back occasionally, but climb on, forever higher. It was slow progress at times and at other times, when the sun hit the side of the mountain perfectly and the breeze was just right, the footing firmed up and I made amazing progress in spurts of rapid assent.

What is hardest about the middle portion of the climb is not the footing, but its length - length that breeds a cancerous boredom within me. I remember before that this boredom may have been what did me in but I don’t really care because the boredom is infecting me. I felt it creeping into me before, on every attempt, just as I feel it now, slowly and with malice, filling my capillaries and penetrating my bones. There is no risk in the middle part of the climb. You just climb. If you slip, you climb again. The bottom is so far away that you can’t imagine ever getting there again, but the top is so very distant that you are almost sure that it is unreachable. All there is to do is to climb in monotonous steps and repeated patterns over and over again with no end in sight and no chance of failing. It becomes completely and utterly without purpose. It is just climbing for the sake of climbing and it is nauseating.

I feel it now as I did then. I am so very bored.

It was somewhere along this muddy, rocky path that I remember the brink. I haven’t gotten there yet this time, but I can feel it just around the next corner, or the next. My vague recollection of the brink is that I was delighted by it. When I made this journey before, in this stage of total and exhausted bored depression, I came upon the brink and it was a magical, fresh and different - a perfectly inviting change from the monotonous hours upon days upon weeks of pointless climbing.

At the brink, this muddy path takes a jog to the left, the sky opens up, and the world drops away from you. The brink is a cliff. The muddy path that I am on leads right up to the edge of the cliff before turning again off to the left and continuing on its slow and disgustingly tedious merry way. The cliff at the brink falls off dramatically and endlessly, a three thousand foot drop straight down to the bottom. And this is why the brink is so magical. It is risk: risk that I have not felt for months, risk that I will never feel again by continuing my mind numbing trek on the path to my left, risk that is enticing because it represents some kind of feeling at precisely the time that I am most without feeling. Across from the edge of the cliff at the brink, at an easily jumpable distance is the pure and beautiful face of a sheer rock wall. With two steps and a twitch of the leg muscles I could easily hurl myself the distance to that rock wall – as I remember doing before – and catch hold, or drop to my death at the bottom. And, at the top of that rock wall, is the top of the mountain, a direct yet dangerous climb straight up to my goal. The path to my left meanders forever, up and down and in circles before making each little step upward, and eventually winding its was upwards to the top of this very same rock wall – an endless journey. But here at the brink, the top is visible, and the temptation is absolute: one simple leap, one lucky snag, and a bit of luck in climbing the rock wall without even one slip, and I am there.

The brink is two choices – and endless journey on the same path I am on or a one time chance at getting there now. Take the leap, make a short climb, don’t make any mistakes and, bingo, the journey is over. Maybe you die, but it has to be better than the slow death that the current path feels like.

I am not at the brink yet, but I remember it. I remember taking the leap before – three times. Twice I caught hold and twice I began the climb straight up before losing my grip and falling to my death. Once I missed my grip entirely and fell immediately straight down to the bottom. But those memories are not strong. The pain has faded. What happened then may not matter now. I have never tried just turning left and continuing on. The brink is that enticing.

The brink is right around the corner. I can feel it coming.

What will I do?

I am not sure. I do feel stronger now. My climbing skills have improved. My grip is firm.