thomasina pidgeon: squamish rain

It’s been a long uneventful month in the homeland, many a wet dreary days that feel never ending. When it was sunny, we rejoiced and danced, running from boulder to boulder looking for the dry ones or at least half dry. The day ended and a new one came with skies of an omniscient grey that poured droplets the size of small peas. My heart sank. I wondered if the cloudless sky the day before was merely a dream. It has rained so much here this month. So much in fact, records were broken and it feels as though all anyone talks about is the rain. When the clouds start to part and blue sky breaks through, there is a flicker of hope that it may actually stop. I am awakened from this illusion by the pit pattering of drops that I hear falling full force on my van. But the sky is blue! Right there, look! How can it be possibly raining?

It didn’t take much rain, rather, the resulting rest days to convince myself that I should probably invest in a gym pass. On my 4^th rest day, I bite the bullet and purchased a gym pass to the local bouldering co-op here in Squamish. It was pricey but I told myself it’d help me last through this wet spell. It ended up being a good choice since the rest of the month has been cursed with rain and showers. Now gym climbing has been for me a novelty. Something I do when the weather is cursed and it is fun for a while but I get bored of it. I have never been a super strong gym climbing or dedicated trainer but I felt my regular yearly “psych to start training” spell come about. I get a program from Flannery who is an avid trainer and crusher and retrospectively I wonder if I have wasted her time. I have done it a total of 2 times but since stuff like that is contagious, every other girl in the gym has done it as well so not all was wasted. Along with that, 2 days into the gym pass my finger starts to hurts. What do I do? I keep climbing.

We manage to get outside 2 days a week with a day or 2 in the gym. This was just enough to keep one sane and motivated for both styles of climbing. I start thinking about the World Cup and the climbing scene outside of the real rocks. How come I never take part in this scene? I suppose because I prefer rocks. Gym climbing is expensive as well as comp fees but I guess if I was stuck somewhere, the gym would still be fun. It’d help me get stronger at least. Gym climbers are freakin’ strong, I merely manage to get up things because I have some skill. I find myself psyched watching the short video clips from the world cups. Hell, maybe I’ll even compete and enter the WC and wait a second! Reality check...! What am I thinking? Regardless of cost involved, I suck at gym climbing! It requires dynamic movement, something I seem incapable of and dedication to training and even worse, time away from real rock. I’d be like a tree stump next to the spry bouncy girls who dyno like I will never be able to. But alas, my spirit feels young and I know this shell won’t last forever. I shall try to do with it what I can while it still stands. Arguably, excuses will come up from every which way. In the end, it doesn’t matter, climbing is climbing and it’d be like a new adventure. Now if only I commit enough to this fanatical idea… The projects I have left behind call me, what about us, what about this and that and… it’s never ending chatter.

Needless to say, after all the daydreaming, after a month of ignoring my ring finger, it now hurts. Not only after climbing but now during. It’s time to start listening to the body. Rest is mandatory. The gym phase was fun; I got dynoing lessons from Simon and managed to do a small one. I screamed like a girl when I caught the hold, an involuntary response triggered out of fear that I was going to fly off the wall and land in a straight belly flop onto the hard mats that lay below. I head to Newfoundland shortly for a family trip, little climbing allowed, time to heal. I wonder if my project will be dry when I am gone. I wonder if my finger will be better for it when I get back. Humph. I sit here, looking at the rain and do what one does when there are cat and dogs falling from the skies. I wonder. The rain is so pretty.


Me cleaning my dream project in hopes it would help it to fully dry.