The Rock
I stepped onto the rocky soil. It was hot, but the soil was cool and moist. I had with me a bottle of water, and my camera and was walking towards a tall hill of rock.
I made my way through isolated groves of unknown species of trees, through walls of wind-and-rain smoothed boulders, into the rocky bed of a dead stream at the hill’s base. I began to climb. The steep ground was made difficult to climb by its grade. It consisted of rocks and pebbles, small and large, but mostly small. It was like climbing on gravel. It continually shifted and with every two steps, one was lost.
The rocks slid underneath me, but it was I who made them move. My skin became wet with perspiration. My shirt stuck to my skin. My eyes hurt from the sun’s glare upon beige and gray rock. My arms were stinging from the sun’s beat upon them. And I continued. The incline became greater and the rock slid more and more.
The rocks became increasingly smaller and smaller until they turned to dust. There was a short brake in the stone where the hard dirt triumphed, then a large boulder covering it in shadow. Weeds covered the boulder also littered with trees. I surmounted the stone and made my way through a small green oasis. I broke free into a large flat stone with mounds of dirt breaking its surface at random. It was a desert—no plants, no pools of water, no signs of life. I walked forward boldly onto the smooth surface.
There were old military vehicles cast carelessly aside here. There were several tanks and two vehicles that looked like older versions of the modern HumVee modified for carrying rock and dirt. All had obviously been abandoned for years.
The mountain had been cut right down the middle for one of the largest dams I had ever seen before. I remembered when I first saw this monolith. I was driving towards my cabin outside of Branson, Missouri. I needed a challenge and I needed a big one. I found 150 ft of sheer rock face. This is what I was looking for and this is what I wanted. At first glance, I was intimidated, but only for a second. It was mine and I knew it.
I approached the rock on it face furthest to the right: helicopters and small planes made trips quite often over this area, but always approached it on the left. I took a drink from my water bottle and began my ascent. I surmounted first a large wedge shaped rock bringing me on to the actual wall.
It wasn’t difficult. I placed my hands on rock and pulled my body up after them. I stretched my body around obstacles and side stepped around large holes in the rock where small animals could have been hiding. On less steep surfaces, I would jump from one ledge to the other, knowing that any mistake could be fatal, but knowing also that I would not make a mistake. I was not afraid. I looked up and was filled with pride knowing that I could and soon would; I looked down at my progress just as naturally saying to myself, " Of course".
There were large birds of prey circling over head throughout my climb. I regarded them with a quiet chuckle, knowing that their time was wasted.
I forged ahead--quickly, brilliantly--to the top. I felt no fatigue, only thirst, and with it the desire not to quench it, but to keep moving, to let myself be thirsty, to allow my body to want, to push myself further because I knew that I had no limits.
As my body rose nearer and nearer to the top, I gained speed and I gained momentum in knowing that this moment was mine, in knowing that nobody could stop me or take this away from me. I took pride in the fact that only an equal could share this with me. I took pride in knowing that only the skilled, only the agile and the quick could do what I was doing. I saw the birds circling above me, and I knew that I was their equal. That I was one of them because I too was soaring out of reach of others. That I too was flying and only another of my own kind could reach me.
I ran to the top, over crevices with no bottoms and over the lush plant life on its edges. I had made it to the top, just as I knew that I would. I had done something that I knew I could do, but had never attempted to do before. And I ran. I ran without restraint along its jagged edge of broken planes and sharp drop-offs. I ran from one end to the other. I ran under the midday sun hundreds of feet above every other person in existence. I didn’t want to stop--I didn’t want to relax, because I was relaxed. Every movement, every flex of every muscle was invigorating. I had earned every scratch from the rocks that I had conquered. I had caused the sweat that was now, on this great rock, cooling me by the wind created by my own movement. And I knew joy, that perpetual feeling which would not allow me to stop moving, that would not allow me to shut my mouth lest it lose its gradual upward curve that was my smile. When I finally stepped off of the rock, it was with great reluctance. But I left that rock as I found it: as a great serene symbol of what can be conquered. That day, I took with me a great sense of pride and accomplishment. I also took a momento of the scavenging bird whom I mocked with every victorious movement of my body: one of its black feathers that had fallen and rested on a ledge near the top where I had been.
Many people think that it takes a lot of guts to do something like this. Many say that it takes a great faith in one’s self. I know that it takes neither. I knew that I could do it. There was no guesswork involved, no abstractions, no ‘maybe’s. Just an "I can". And I did.
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