The Sun Comes Up on Struggle
Chalkdust was in my pores. It ascended through the vast cavern of the rock climbing gym, on an escalator of air currents especially designed to derail the potential particles of Covid-19.
After so much had been whittled away in the past year with the onset of the pandemic, I had been waiting, like many, for the way back “in.” I was checked out, disconnected, having become used to the exertion of as little effort as necessary for self-preservation. If it didn’t come in a box, on a screen, or via email it was inaccessible to me.
Reluctantly, I arrived with my son and husband to climb, a family routine we were beginning again after a five year hiatus. My son had learned to walk at the climbing gym. He would pull himself up on chalk-stained hot pink holds, launch himself down on the thick blue gymnastic mats, and roll in the dips and creases to match the contours of his laugh. Finally still, within the folds, he would look up at the climbers above him like angels on Jacob’s ladder. Now he was one. I was there purely for him.
Earlier that day, in a silo of the gym a single two-tailed silk had been hung, dropped like a pin on a map. Its cascade waited to contend. We debated about whether it was a waterfall or dragon’s tail, this finial strung from the top of a V8 climb. I was still climbing V0s and 1s, most times only As and Bs, whatever was easiest for me. I noticed the same reasoning trickle into the decisions I made about dinner, free time, and arguments. But I heard the whisper of an invitation slide down the length of the silk. The way the unbroken surface of a pool politely makes promises to the fingertips of a diver, this glittery shower of fabric longed to consume. It didn’t matter if I climbed to the top of it without using my toes, hung upside down with my hips, did front flips or leg extensions to look like the wo-man-in-the-moon. It only wanted entry; and so did I.
The roughness of the silk startled me, it kept my hands from slipping. My core contracted through its c-section scar. My breath felt useful, even if confined behind my mask, as every movement mattered in the air. My instructor was patient.
It was hard.
My inner thighs were compressed and raw with the friction, my fists would not unclench afterwards. My feet ached, arches arced in the stirrups that my body contorted to create. Several times I slumped to the ground, slid through the contraption of staying upright, wrestled out of its grasp. Pull. Step. Twist. Push. Rest. Repeat. A boxer in the ring, a brother stealing a blessing. My hip is still out of whack.
Afterward, my son wanted a turn and my husband. I watched them move through the initial surprise of the swing of the silk sweeping them off their feet, to the unexpected stability of being caught and suspended in the air, to the disbelief of flight. We all left more buoyant for this unexpected oasis.
The silk swayed in place, never settling long enough for a face to emerge from the folds, to unmask the challenger who had exposed my weakness and yet still let me win.
—Annie
Annie McHugh resides in coastal Connecticut with her husband and son, where they all enjoy stand-up paddle boarding at the beach and getting to know their neighbors. Annie is a 500-hour certified yoga instructor with a love for meditation and heated vinyasa. When she's not serving the operations and communications at Christ Presbyterian Church she enjoys going to the movies, the library, and perusing her bookshelves. You can read more from her here.