#21 Licking Falling

Cockroaches.

Shiny, crunchy, brown flattened capsules on spindly legs with hair-like protrusions that look like a series of hooks.

A cockroach walking by itself doesn’t scare me. If it’s outside, I let it hang out.

No. Eight minutes into this prompt, I’m changing topics. Yes, it took me eight minutes to write those three lines.

Heights. I’m unharnessed on the holds just eight feet off the ground in a bouldering gym when I feel my palms sweat. A nervous cycle sends sweat glands into overdrive, moistening the contact of my fingers on the hold, lowering my belief and ability to can hang on, increasing my anxiety. I exert more energy tightening my grip, heating up my body, sending my sweat glands into overdrive, moistening my fingers, and on and on. I hanging on knowing my ability to hang on spirals to zero. Instead of letting go, I hang on until grip runs out, until I go down not knowing when or how to land.

Is it heights? Or is it not knowing how to fall properly?

The latter.

It’s a different feeling when I’m harnessed in, tied to a rope hooked onto the wall and climbing. I’ll climb above hard earth ten times higher than I ever would in a bouldering gym lined with crash pads.

Two months ago, I climbed a slab outdoors, my first climb of any type in over a year. On the way down from my first climb that day, my belayer let out the rope too fast, my feet lost contact with the wall, the rope swing a hard right and I crashed into a cove bushes in a nook of rock just my size.

I screamed on the swing, shouting his name. Right after the crash though, I said “I’m OK!” in that amused physical comedy kind of way. That was surprise, not fear.

Fear of falling, nothing to catch me, severe damage on impact — that’s one I’ve yet to lick.

How much would someone have to pay me to physically lick this fear?

What would it mean to physically lick a fear of falling?

To fall with my tongue out?

To land on it?

Neither of these options seems to leave me with a tongue at the end of the incident.

Let’s look at “lick” metaphorically, a la Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird…

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.”

Put it that way, what does that mean for falling?

Maybe it means…knowing there’s a good chance of falling and trying to ascend anyway.

Or, knowing there’s a good chance of injury and letting myself fall anyway.

Or maybe it means… admitting to someone that I don’t know how to fall properly, and paying them money to show me how, then doing it deliberately, over and over again.

Choosing my fall instead of hanging on, waiting for it to happen, somehow believing that hanging on reduces the likelihood of falling when it is expediting the inevitability.

One way would be to lick my hands while bouldering. Licking all the chalk off, lubing it up, making it slick on contact with the next hold so that there’s no way my hand will stay in one place for more than a millisecond before slipping away.

For this act of… I’m not sure courage is the right word… I would do it for 5,000 Euros.

That seems to be my going rate these days, as the other night my friends asked how much someone would have to pay me to jump off the concrete bank into Hong Kong harbor that night, arguably the busiest harbor in the world. At night.

Why 5,000 Euros? Why Euros? I don’t know why Euros — perhaps my subconscious believes that my target audience — people who would pay me to lick my hands while climbing are likely to hold the currency of the European Union, an organization that has no choice but to let go of members who want to let go.

Why 5,000 Euros?

It’s low enough that it’s highly likely that someone can pay it. Yes, I’d have to commit to it. And if you’ve ever been in a bouldering gym breathing the metallic musk skin on stone friction, exposed armpits, sweaty sockless feet, unwashed hair, and sweat soaked chalk, you’re cringing at the idea of licking your hands after setting them on any hold in there for more than 5 seconds.

So, this is really gross. I raise my price. I’ll do it if you pay me 50,000 Euros.

Why 50,000 Euros?

I’ll pump it back into my business. I’ll need 50,000 Euros to partner up with a decent coach to build a new branch of business helping people overcome their fears of falling and jumping into dark waters at night. By the end of our course, you can “just do it” — there’s no need to wait for gravity.

—

This is Day 21 of “Don’t Break the Chain” — a writing course by Cole Schafer.

Today’s prompt: What am I scared of most? What makes my skin crawl and my knees go weak and my palms sweat and my vision blur?

What would someone have to pay me to physically lick this fear? What would I do with that money?

If the fear can’t be physically licked, think of ‘licked’ as used by Atticus Finch. I copied that straight from the prompt.