Movement

Went to Movement gym in Boulder today and did some good stuff.

I'm too pooped to write much more but will anyways because I believe that in writing this some miracle will happen with my climbing. I feel like the more I pour into this sport, into understanding it, eating it, breathing it, the more quickly I will improve. Pouring now...

I have turned a corner with fear. I don't fear falling anymore. I just don't. I thought about it, wrote it down, and now -- *poof* -- it's relegated to the junk heap of ALL THINGS HOLDING ME BACK. (I keep said pile in a corner of my condo and every once and again blow the dust off of it jeest to see from whence I've come. Whew baby, the stuff in that pile.)

I lead almost everything in our four-hour workout session. I did inverted and even steeled myself up for a dynamic move for an unknown hold over a lip. I made it! And it felt good. I'm really happy with my improvement.

And per usual, happiness leads me not to contentment, but for.... drumroll.... the desire for more! I want more climbing and more success there, of course. But this focus on it has made me want to drill in on some other aspects of my life that need improvement.

I need a project outside of myself. I heard a story on poverty on NPR on my way to school Thursday morning. It is haunting me. I need to do something about poverty. I teach and live in affluence. And it's all well and good, but I want to be bigger than this. I give to a local food pantry, help pay tuition for a child in Guatemala, and do other sundry charitable type good-person things. But I want to make it bigger. Some of my ideas include:

1. Become a Big Sister

2. Run a club at school where the students and I volunteer at food pantries; this one appeals because my students are affluent. Some have a sense of entitlement, others a sense of discontent. This week we read Langston Hughes's "Mother to Son" and made lists of our "tacks, splinters, and boards torn up." I was shocked at how many of them had personal experience with suicide. None of them see their lives as a "crystal staircase." It is my theory that suburbia breeds discontent, a lack of purpose. If I pursued this option, my students might benefit as much as the food pantries. I would benefit.

I would have to give up some things to make either of these happen. TIME. I would have to give up some of my precious alone, restore-me time. That is a rub. Some days I have endless energy and could handle it well, other days not so much.

I would have to drive. I know, pretty weak. But I loathe driving.

So here is my commitment. I will check into both of these options and report back within a week. The knowledge will not kill me, I trust.