Also a nice opportunity to show some love for Michael McGriff, Lidia Yuknavitch, Ben LeRoy, Sherman Alexie, and the Nick Adams stories (maybe Hemingway in general).

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It was necessary (I had to take my daughter to school and get to a meeting on time), but still. And I realized once again how much I like the rhythm of my days, the repetition, the consistency.

I like biking to work, doing pull-ups on doorjambs, wearing free clothing, climbing anywhere and everywhere I can.

And so I return to the Sisters Boulders today, back to the same campsite, the same boulders where I’ve spent more than 150 days climbing and developing new routes.

There’s nothing like those stars, in the middle of the high desert, the rimrock and free-standing basalt.  Raw fingertips.  The smells of juniper and sage.

Don’t tell me what the media wants you to believe.  Think for yourself:

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“My Advice On Writing” – David James Duncan

So my-only-friend-in-the-entire-world-Jeff-Hess and I went back with a pry-bar and a metal brush, food, shoes, and sleeping bags.  Our goal was to clean and climb as many new routes as we could in three days.  And when we hiked back there, we found ANOTHER bouldering area to the east, an unclimbed area with even more potential than the first one I found.

So we went to work, cleaning and climbing.  We worked in the Mules Ear and Sage and Ponderosa, scraping and digging and climbing until our fingerpads were worn out and our shoulders and forearms thrashed.  When we went into town for a burger one night, a local said, “Y’all look like you got into some briars, huh?”

Or as someone I know said when I got back to Eugene, we were scraped up like “meth addicts.”

For future reference, this is what “meth addict” legs looks like:

Pretty, huh?

But it was worth it.  We established 44 first ascents, new routes rated between VB and V7.

The work reminded me of any hard thing:  Writing, parenting, climbing, or skating.

The good skaters I know will work a trick for hours, sometimes four or five hours on that one single trick, until their shins look worse than my “meth addict” shins.

I also like how skaters will sit and wait, thinking about that trick for fifteen or twenty minutes, then they’ll go back to work for an hour or two more.  Skaters have this calm before they work that might be mistaken for laziness by a casual observer.

So even though I slashed my legs a little bit, got a little bit bleedy, did a little bit of work, I spent a lot of time doing nothing during the three days.  Laying on the ground staring at the sky.  Watching a stick fire burn low.  Closing my eyes for five minutes.  Sitting in a cave.

I grew up with a skater named Cooper Wilt who became a professional, a skater who’s shins were rotten and criss-crossed with scabs, bloody and bruised and nasty.  Those shins were evidence of his work, a level of work I’ve never attained in my rock climbing.  Coop did work.  And he became great.

And that’s a good, simple lesson for me.

If you want to see Coop Wilt’s skating, click here:

Coop – Almost Round 3

I was so impressed with the diligence of the students.  The professor was teaching them to find symbols and leitmotifs in the work, and they came up with incredible examples.  Also, their dedication to scholarship was something I didn’t expect.

One woman was having trouble with the arc, so she reread the whole second half of the book.  Another young woman couldn’t identify with a scene in a trailer park, but she noticed a reference to Pink Floyd and decided to listen to the album while rereading.  Then she said everything came together and she was immersed in the scene.

The students even found a few motifs I didn’t intend as motifs:  The maps of Daniel and Maria linking.  The flag on the throat.

They asked me to talk about structure and purpose, and I felt humbled by their questions.  So grateful.

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The other one said, “And this must be what people had before they invented rap.”

Both girls started laughing uncontrollably.

So we showed them Run DMC and Beastie Boys (to give them a little knowledge of the origins of rap).  Both girls said that Run DMC and Beastie Boys weren’t rapping.

“They’re just yelling,” they said.

But then we watched the “Sabotage” video, possibly the greatest music video of all time.  And the girls could at least get into that:

Sabotage.

“Pace is also something to consider.  If you’ve ever watched a little kid playing by himself in a backyard, you know that there are no straight lines.  The best words to describe the motion are “scattered” or “wandering.”  Now, if you have a really good trail system, and the young person is highly motivated to get to the end of the hike (say, you’ve told him that he can swim as soon as he gets there), he might travel in somewhat of a straight line.  Somewhat.  The young person will still generally zigzag back and forth across the trail, stop to look at the bright orange lichen on the tree, fling mud at his brother, spit off of the bridge, stare at a buzzard, go into the forest after a hiking stick, chase a lizard, stomp in a puddle, try to find a woodpecker, balance on a log, pick flowers, pick his nose, and stare off.

With young people, you will travel slowly.”

Ben LeRoy of Tyrus first alerted me to Crews’ Youtube video on writing last year, and I’ve watched it many times since.  Crews’ points on metaphor and answering questions are two things any novelist should listen to, and as I’ve revised my novel Graphic The Valley yet again this past month, I’ve thought often about following Crews’ advice.

I’ve posted this video link before, but I’m posting it again here to remember Crews, and to introduce him to those who haven’t heard him speak.  It’s also a great testament to Crews’ character that he looks like he does, has that nasty cough, reiterates one of his themes in his list, etc., and doesn’t care.  Not at all.  Crews is just Crews:

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