Call me
Yesterday morning Miranda July listed “indoor rock climbing” in the headline to her free substack post second only to comic book sex tips. I love Miranda July so much, in the parasocial way and the role model way, and the climbing carrot is what finally what broke me open to publicly admitting my desire to be closer to her flames. Accordingly, I have just spent over an hour with my laptop and phone with a break in the middle pulling weeds to regroup, figuring out how to upgrade to a paid substack subscription. It turns out her best sentences were in the free tease anyway:
“After a year of hot yoga I am (very regretfully) thinking it might be too intense for a person who is recovering from burnout. I love to overdo it; it’s actually hard for me to keep up anything that isn’t intense, rigorous, produces tangible results (and not just with exercise.)”
Since I’m now a paying creep, I guess I feel more comfortable wondering aloud: What tangible results will Miranda July find in climbing? Will it be the sticky sweet satisfaction of plowing through the grades early on? New muscles in strange places? To paraphrase just one great insight from her book All Fours, are we getting bigger or are we getting smaller as we grow new muscles?
Or will her satisfaction come from eavesdropping on the ragtag community of wizened old regulars hobbling up to take their stool at the bar, I mean kilter board? Magic tricks of proprioception? Or the peace of flow state, granting good idea after good idea?
Most importantly, she seems to be asking, and I’m right there with her, is climbing the place to break the habit of overdoing? As someone who has definitely overdone, then redone it all, I give a cautious yes.
Part of the power climbing grants me is a respectful relationship with violence. I know exactly how I could hurt my heart, body and even others with climbing and I know to my core I will not (at least on purpose). After many years of wielding that power poorly or denying I possessed it at all, the practice is now something I embody instinctively and protectively. I do it for myself and I do it as an example for others whether they are watching how I climb or not.
How have you come to terms with the power that you, too, hold? Whether you are a climber or not, how is it going with your ability to create and destroy?
Fears I hear often in my own head and out of the mouths of others: Is it hubristic to want to wield this power more competently and magnificently? Is understanding the breadth of my own influence going to keep others from experiencing theirs?
It could be about money, making art, leading others, getting better at climbing or the size and shape of your body and sex.
All these fears all boil down to: Can I trust myself to do no harm?
If you’re not sure, let’s find out together.