People who have signed up for this Substack newsletter may have done it because they know me. Or I uploaded their email from the WordPress blog that I write, and they didn’t have a choice (eek!). There are a few readers here though who signed up because I’ve advertised myself as a rock climber and a mother and that I write about these two things, mainly. It’s right there in the description of this newsletter. Looking back on what I have written since starting this newsletter, I find that it’s heavy on the mothering and not on the climbing. I’m frustrated by this too! I wish there was more writing about climbing here, but I find I’m in this weird space where it seems to be way harder to get outside climbing than I want it to be. Even when we have put climbing on the schedule, something in Real Life happens, and we have had to cancel.
Sometimes, on really bad days, I wonder, maybe climbing isn’t really in our cards anymore, not like it use to be. Or I wonder, maybe their are evil forces trying to keep joy out of my life. Or maybe, when I am trying to be hopeful, it’s because, we’re not quite empty nesters, and I’m trying to rush it, and once both sons live on their own, we will be able to ease right back into the climbing life.
A few years ago, in the early years of Ascend Climbing in Pittsburgh, I wrote a blog post for the website called “Climbing Seasons.” In this article of sorts, I talked about there being seasons of inside climbing, when all you can manage to do is get to the local gym on a somewhat regular schedule. I wrote about being grateful for any climbing, including in the gym. But now I feel like Brian and I have been deep in this season since COVID hit in 2020, perhaps completely unrelated to it, but I’m not content. We are stuck in it, and sometimes sinking, like quicksand. Anyway, I’m trying to remind myself to breathe and ride it out and not struggle too much; and I hope, if you signed up for this newsletter and feel cheated because I don’t write about climbing enough, you’ll stick with me. That next climbing season is just out there, hovering on the horizon. I can see it. It’s coming.
I do have a van update though. No, no. It hasn’t died yet. Well, aside from the fact that something drained it’s battery, and it won’t start right at this moment… No, no. We didn’t leave the headlights on. No. It may be the new radio that has a lit clock that stays on all the time. I don’t know yet; it’s just a guess.
The update is that we have camped in it, and I slept in the pop top! In our first VW Eurovan, the pretty maroon 2002 Weekender we had for 8 years, the boys’ little selves had dibs to sleep up there.
But in the white camper van, I do. Brian slept in the top of the Weekender once and he said it was like sleeping in a coffin. Maybe because my body is smaller than his, I don’t feel that way. Or maybe, I’m part vampire. Up there I am surrounded by three big screen windows, and I can look out into the trees and the sky. I love it. If I am honest, I love sleeping alone up there. The first time we went for an overnight in the van, sleeping next to each other on the less than double sized bed down in the camper part was not restful. Sorry Brian, it’s not you, it’s me…
I have also learned to love driving the big lug around, especially on the highways. I was worried that I would get really worked up and ancy because we would have to go so slow all the time. I’m a bit of a rager when I’m driving a not ancient car (fast) on the highways (what other way is there, you guys?), but when I drive the van, I have been able to hunker down in the slow lane, hit the cruise, and enjoy. Yes! The cruise control works! When you only drive 65 mph, it’s actually relaxing. It does wonders for my blood pressure. And my relationship with Brian. And how I interact with the whole world, really.
The last thing to say about the camper van right now, is that when we are out driving around in Pittsburgh, everyone who knows us knows it’s us. We’re completely recognizable again. We drive around and our friends hail us, and we wave back— and I bounce around a little bit. Sometimes people we don’t know in their own VW get-up give us a little head-nod. And we can always see the top of the van wherever it’s parked in the parking lot.
These are the little things that I missed when we sold the Weekender in 2016, and having them back feels a little bit like being at home.