Post 5

Posted on by jennclimbsrocks

In bed around midnight, alarms set for 8 am, planning on getting our asses out the door and on our way to some rad climbing by 9:30 am.  Looked up relevant public transport, knew what moderate limestone lines we were stoked for, packed our bags.

Fast forward to 10:30 am.  We lay in bed, we talk about our feelings for a little bit (we talk about our feelings a lot), and within an hour finally get up to make coffee.  Greek coffee is fucking great.  Our original plan included public transportation for about 2 hours each way, so we changed our plans to reduce travel time and visit a crag in the center of Athens, called Filopappou, which theoretically reduced our travel time by over an hour each way.

We got off the metro down town and during our walk there (freddo espresso in hand, because it turns out that cold espresso with a little sugar is delicious) happened upon a touristy walkway lined with stands selling jewellery and artistic wares and more amazing sites: ruins, ancient water engineering systems (I mean these clay pipes were built literally 8000 years ago), and more views of the Acropolis.  When Grecians ask why we’re visiting Greece, we usually talk about the climbing and the current social climate, but seriously, where else in the world can you witness such legendary developments in human civilization and politics casually on your way to climb some rocks?  We just happened upon it, again.  So this evening when Maria, our bartender again at BeeRaki, asked me about how I like Athens, this is what I told her.  Of course there is climbing and that is our primary focus, but ever since primary school we learn about ancient Greece, and so few get to experience it, so I feel so grateful.  Maria of course laughed and responded coolly that living and growing up in Athens, it doesn’t feel so spectacular.

The crag was good in some parts and in others smelled a bit too strongly like urine.  This area was one of the first widely used by climbing schools since before WWII, and is still widely used for training and traversing, as well as top roping and bouldering.  The polished, smooth surfaces of many of the holds attest to this long history.  Moves are committing and attainable, and sometimes over scary falls.  The rock is pink and gray limestone, sometimes giving angular formations but more often forming small tufas to pinch, and is studded with pockets and crimps.  More than once I pulled off of one finger, which is rare for the easier level of climbing we practiced there.  Just like the language, the small personal space bubbles, and the recurring views of the Acropolis, this type of rock is so foreign to us, and is worn in a way that causes even less confidence in delicate fingertip and foot placements.  Through almost all the moves I was able to keep a cool head over the several people traversing below me, which feels miles away from where I was a week ago.

We got to end the day again by seeing some more live traditional music at the bar.  The bar was mostly empty, and the music ended early.  Nicos, player of the lute, shared a drink with us and told us stories of his travels, as well as of some Greek history.  Our apartment is located between the streets of 3rd September and 28 October, and we have also passed the street of 25 March, and I’ve been wondering for 2 weeks now what those signify.  They are all for resisting some kind of invasion or for revolution, which seems apt and still relevant in today’s climate.

This is a good pattern to get settled into: coffee, walking, seeing the freaking Acropolis, climbing, music, Greek history/language lesson.  The novelty and appreciation is something I hope to carry with me always, and if I forget how fucking lucky I am right now I hope I find this to remind myself.  I also hope I can bring my growth from this experience to my interactions with other people and with the kiddos I serve, in the form of art, story telling, education, or by passing on the kindness others have showed us.  Ugh, this feels really sappy and optimistic.  Maybe I’ll edit it to be more cynical and nihilistic later so it matches my insides more.  But I guess in this moment my insides are less nihilistic than usual.

Peace

Jenn

Post 4

Posted on by jennclimbsrocks

Rest day mind-adventure story time!

So of course we came to Athens and Greece to climb super rad rocks (and to have rock-based emotional breakdowns and to recover from rock-based emotional breakdowns, I guess).  However, social, political, and historical factors also drove our decision to make this our destination, so exploring diverse neighborhoods and talking to people are our jams on rest days.

We chose to walk around Exarchia, whose many partially broken and decaying walls are covered in graffiti murals and whose streets are lined with balconies, ivy, flowering trees, restaurants, and the refuse that permeates the city.  We wanted to witness this neighborhood and interact with the center of much of the occupy movement over here.  As we expected, there is an increase in graffiti and in political fliers and live music advertisement as you wander through this neighborhood compared to area of Peristeri that we are living in, slightly northeast of Exarchia.  The walls give exposure not just to tags and hastily drawn slogans, but often to more thoughtful political, often pro-anarchy and anti-nazi statements, as well as to beautiful murals that cover entire sides of buildings in color.  I noted that giving my community something so vibrant and happy would be something I would value and would love to do, and actually have done at my job at the treatment center, albeit in an intentional, controlled way in the milieu in which our kiddos live.  Walking further throughout the neighborhood with this art as the background, there is also an increase in coffee shops, book stores, and restaurants that seem to cater to a clientele who is more discerning (and willing to pay more for a beer) than elsewhere we have visited.  The book stores are literally filled with all types of books, in piles that reach to the ceiling and overflow to the streets.  There is a coffee shop tucked away in an alley to get to which you walk under a ceiling of umbrellas and in which young people were sipping on espresso and chatting or working lazily on laptops.  There are breaks from traffic-jammed streets on stone walkways with bars, more coffee shops, and shaded outdoor seating where men and families sit with full plates and full drinks.  It’s this opposition that has stuck with me while thinking about that part of the city; it comes as no surprise that overall Athens is a mix of ancient history and more modern (although often also in a state of decay) infrastructure, or a mix of dirty, urine-soaked streets that feel impoverished but also whose sidewalks and balconies are multi-colored walls beautiful flowering trees that smell of orange, thyme, and jasmine which tell the story of a culture that values freshness and had pride in its home.  It came as a surprise how engrained was the middle-class economy, at least on a superficial level, to the community that so openly and proudly defames the government and many institutions and that so generously and proudly endeavors to equalize political and economic hierarchies.  In no way am I placing negative judgement, and Exarchia was so beautiful and great, but that interaction of people stayed in my brain space and created many questions about the depth or superficiality of my cultural experiences and my cultural understandings.

Continuing to ponder this, we wandered back towards Kefallinias Street, where our apartment is, through a beautiful park, past a statue of a police riding horseback (which one artist captioned “fuck the police” in blue spray paint), and up some hills until we could look behind us and see the Acropolis raised on a hill surrounded by a sea of white buildings.  It’s moments like this that make me feel so grateful and that I long to share with others, and that are impossible to describe.  It seems I am continually on an endeavor to integrate even more dialectics into my emotional experience as a human and on this trip.

Skipping ahead a few hours, Naomi and I laid in bed, exhausted, encouraging each other to get up and go to see our friend Alex, who we met climbing, play traditional Cretan music at a small bar about a kilometer from our apartment.  We ended up succeeding, and man, are we stoked that we did.  The bar was dark and only about 15 other folks were there.  Amstel and ouzo seem to be Athens’s alcohols of choice, of which we partook, as Alex played percussion, accompanying a lyre and an oud.  Thankfully, the music went on for hours, Alex and his friends taught us some traditional dance steps, and we talked to super nice people who entertained our very limited knowledge of the Greek language (and improved it, teaching us “Yamas!” for “Cheers!”)  I was anxious and often uncomfortable with the close physical boundaries of people socializing with me (and with people I’m general).  Still, despite my frequent desire to be alone all the time, this bar, this night, with this music was fucking rad.  I got to hear and experience and dance to and breathe this traditional music, which is often not in 4/4 time, but in bars of 5, 7, or 9, and the fretless lyre would oscillate between smooth tones supporting the oud and percussion and fast melodic solos.  Neither the lyre nore the vocals are bound by half-steps in tone, but are microtonal and exceptional.  Focusing on these aspects of the music that were foreign to me allowed me to escape my busy mind and fully enjoy these new sensory moments.  Again my level of mastery of language leaves to be desired the ability to convey the specialness of those moments and the mix of happiness, sadness, anxiety, and gratitude that I have for them, that I have for them ending, and that I have knowing that something else that special will probably happen again.

So concluded the adventures of this first rest day.  I feel like I have a lot from these past few days to really explore mentally and emotionally and figure out how to integrate into my experience and my world view, which is really exciting to me.  There’s just… so much.  It really doesn’t change, this continual self-development and reflection, or at least it doesn’t have to.  I hope my self-development, my experiences, and my consideration of the world and of others never stagnate.  So, to growth and change of ourselves and our world view! Yamas!

Peace

Jenn

Post 3, revised

Posted on by jennclimbsrocks

We visited Acharneis, “the definitive beginners crag in Athens” (which is accessible by public transport!), and it was beautiful compact limestone with wonderful north-facing views of hills and other far away crags and Athenian suburbs and also wonderful afternoon shade, (it is so beautiful and great and the views from the rock are so gorgeous, especially as the sun is setting) and it offered me one of the most emotionally trying experiences I’ve had while climbing.  When we went back the following day, it afforded me the ability to relax and recover a little from that first day.

Many people deal with fear when they’re climbing, or doing pretty much anything that they’re passionate about, and when climbing two common fears are the more physical fear of falling and the more internal fear of failure.  I’ve struggled much more with the latter in general, but recently because I haven’t been lead climbing as much I have had to re-acclimate myself to falling on a rope.  That re-acclimation is coming with practice of falls and of myriad relaxation techniques (thank you Vertical Mind book and thank you mindfulness practice), but today I was affronted with some of the most self-destructive emotion/thought patterns on the rock I’ve dealt with yet.  And by “dealt” I mean “am still dealing with.”  And I imagine this will be an ongoing goal for me.

The plan today was to visit Acharneis, “the definitive beginners crag is Athens” to send a batch of easier climbs while practicing fear-response-control techniques, specifically using different kinds of breathing to modulate my level of arousal and experimenting with ways to trigger a relaxation response in my body while I’m climbing.  We were also hoping to gain confidence clipping bolts again.  On most of these climbs were widely spaced jugs and many pockets with some crimps mixed in.  I mean, so cool. nothing like the high angle chicken heads of Smith, the closest giant sport climbing area to me in Oregon.  Then in felt like all of a sudden, I go from cruising to not being able to find anything at all to hold on to (on a 5c, what I was not-helpfully telling myself “should be my warm up”), so I took my time to look for holds, didn’t find them, and took some more time procrastinating until the point where I was just frozen in indecision and wanting not to fall and look like an incompetent ass.  And man, that move was great: right hand jug, left hand finds a crimp and bumps to a sharp mono that was solid, feet up, right hand to a pinch made by two opposing pockets, left hand to a different small pocket, move the feet again, right hand deadpoints to a positive edge, figure out how to move feet up, jug with the left hand.  Took me like 20 minutes.  I sure wish I had been having fun instead of bullying myself for being a terrible person who no one will ever love again.  So, as I’m struggling  with the moves on some of these easier climbs, my negative scripts (that my self-worth is related to my climbing abilities and that others will consider me less of a person if I fall) kicked in and began this cycle that I couldn’t get out of, so in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been doing my favorite activity with rad people, I sat in a pit of self-loading and disappointment.  Some rad local climbers had began chatting with us, and I could not appreciate it then, but we came to hang out with them over the next couple days and be introduced not only to different climbing areas around Athens, but also to traditional Greek and Crete music and dance and culture, which I could not be more excited about and grateful for!

I don’t like talking when I’m pissed off or in a bad mood, so a lot of processing happened internally, and most of that was the following morning.  I needed to find some kind  of psych, and I tried to remember in the past when I was falling and having fun, what was going through my mind.  I liked falling.  I still like falling.  I like unlocking sequences and doing moves I didn’t think I could do.  I like technical climbs and high feet.  I’m strong and I can pull off hard moves, and sometimes it will take me a lot longer and a lot more attempts than I would like.  But really, who cares?  I have nothing riding on my performance.

So the following day we went back and it took me like a year to climb a 6a+ or something, but I had fun looking for the sequence and falling and asking Naomi, who is the most patient, understanding partner ever, to take and she doesn’t love me any less.  Which is rad and normal, because my worth isn’t based on how classily or beautifully I climb something.

If anyone ever reads this that doesn’t know me, I work with really wonderful kiddos with severe mental illness who are living in a treatment facility in Oregon.  I legit do this for a living, like, working through thought and emotion and cognition and thinking skills on a basic, daily-living, daily-functioning level.  And I’m pretty good at it, sometimes, but today did not feel like one of those days.

On another climbing note, the pockets here are out of this world, which is great because my 2-finger pocket strength has improved, thanks HIT training!  Totally this is still true and I’m still totally grateful for my training!

Peace,

Jenn

Post 1

Posted on by jennclimbsrocks
Post 1: Greece

Today was our first day climbing in Athens!  However, we didn’t climb anything and instead we walked around with backpacks full of our gear and food for five hours.

Some background information:  Last winter Naomi and I decided to take a long trip somewhere, and we chose Athens.  Culturally, Greece is so full of history and mythology (both from the ancients and from my own imagination) and has shaped our own upbringing and education and aesthetics and dreams.   The current situation in Greece is a balance of this proud, seemingly immortal heritage with financial and social flux and change.  Participating in such a transitional, evolving culture is exciting and we hope to evolve our own world views and philosophies as we experience what it really means to change here.  Logistically, we want to climb some rocks, and Greece has many.  The obvious Greek climbing destination is Kalymnos, and we may travel there later in the trip, but we chose to explore the many sport climbing areas around Athens so our home base would immerse us most in the culture we were craving and give us the opportunity to really interact with it. So, we rented an apartment near downtown Athens for 20 days, and we have a week after that to go wherever we feel like exploring.

So back to present day: We arrived yesterday and decided to buy some food and wander around.  Fresh produce is for sale on many street corners in small Greek bodegas, which I’m sure there is a non-Spanish word for, where you can get rice, lentils, wine in 1.5 liter plastic bottles, and many other things you may need.  Produce, rice, lentils, and wine pretty much cover it for me.  The smell of pollution and urine that is familiar in many giant cities is present here, and clashes with the bright colors of ripe fruit and vegetables, and with the overwhelmingly warm and helpful attitudes of the folks we talked to.  Many people speak some English, and many don’t, so repeating “yasas,” “efharisto poli,” and “parakalo,” as well as continually trusting the gestures and intentions of strangers quickly became routine.  Graffiti and posters (both radical and commercial) are omnipresent and beautiful.  It’s a constant reminder of struggle and oppression in Athens and in Europe and the Middle East, and my attention is pulled from my daydreams of climbing back to the present and I appreciate that.  After walking around our neighborhood, we wander in the general direction of “most of the cool ancient stuff in Athens” and holy cow there is the freaking Parthenon on a hill right in front of us.  The transition from crowded narrow streets lined with markets and  innumerable, identical, fig-studded, decaying apartments to crowded wide streets littered with cordoned off ruins and history with tourist-friendly post-card stands is sudden and immediate for me.

As excited as I was in those moments, we made our way back to the apartment for rest before our first day of climbing.  We planned to walk to the area the closest to downtown Athens, Iera Odos, which would be about 1.5-2 hours each way and be really hot in the middle of the day.  This morning, with half Greek and half kind of phonetic directions that we had gotten from the internet in our apartment written on a piece of paper, we left our apartment and immediately went the wrong way, several times.  Then we figured out which way was north, tried again, and were much more successful, until we couldn’t find the streets anymore and realized we missed another turn.  After consulting with several nice folks on the street who didn’t speak English and using a really wonderful person’s phone in one of a shockingly large number of bakeries, we got new directions.  Again, we immediately couldn’t find the streets we needed.  We walked by a cemetery, devoid of grass like most of Athens but full of ornate stone grave markers and most with colorful flowers, used their tiny restroom, and deliberated in the company of a herd of cats.  (Tune in later for more detailed information on the stray cat scene in Athens.)  We had been gone over 3.5 hours and were tired and annoyed and it was hot (and it turns out we weren’t even really that close to the climbing, just impressively lost and inefficient) and we called it a day.  Getting home was much easier since we knew where we were going.  On our way we got a sim card for Naomi’s phone so we could try again tomorrow with the help of maps on the internet that we can access from anywhere.

Hopefully sometime soon I’ll be able to write about climbing I’ve actually managed to do during this fancy international climbing trip.  That would be rad.  Maybe next time.  Maybe not next time.  We’ll just have to see.

Peace,

Jenn