LJ Idol - Week 6: Not my First Rodeo

She lies in the tent between her daughters and her friend, her extra plush car-camping sleeping pad between her tired muscles and the Alabama grass and soil. The smell of campfire smoke is heavy in the humid air and voices outside echo through the trees with the breeze. It would be an early night back home, but it was a full day here. Frogs and insects sing cacophonously. The ridegetop here where they are camping is still in the grip of full, verdant summer. She had hoped there might be a breath of early-September coolness-to-come this weekend; but no. The air is a bit drier than home, but still warm. Very warm. They are still wrapped in the humid southern Indian summer.

Sandrock is a popular place to climb. Even as hot as it was today, they were almost never alone on the rock, even down in the hole where there are only a couple of routes. All told it was a good day. She’s proud of her daughters and her friend.

They all got up some good climbs. It’s been a long time since her friend climbed outside and she was climbing routes outside her grade range in the gym right from the start. And her daughters did some leading, too, which impressed the other climbers around them. They’re strong girls. They’ll turn into her ropeguns if she nurtures it right and that is awesome.

But there is just a bit of niggling disappointment. She didn’t really push herself. She didn’t lead the eight in the hole, which she’s led before. She chickened out on the crux and then set the ropes from above to climb it, something she’s done before. But she’s also led it before, and today she didn’t. And she didn’t work on trad leading on the easier routes, either. It’s been too long since she got a chance to climb outside and she didn’t push super-hard today.

It’s not an unfamiliar feeling. It’s hard to walk the line between disappointment at failure climbing tough stuff and disappointment in not pushing hard enough. The good news is, the rocks will still be there next time. The push can be made later, too.

***

She sits in her cold office and tries not to despair. There will be a raise, but it’s not the raise she hoped for. Well, what the heck? Would it even feel like a challenge if she regularly got what she hoped for?

You enjoy your job, she tells herself. You work with a great team and you like the people you work with every day. It’s a satisfying job. There isn’t a more engaging subject matter anywhere. It’s satisfying except for the pay. Satisfying except for the feeling that the cards are stacked in favor of others.

There are challenges of course. There is more to do than could possibly be done in forty hours a week. That is part of the problem. But there are also solutions. Triage the work. Don’t lose yourself in it. Zealously advocate always. Manage expectations. Be confident, especially in argument. But continue to grow and learn.

She looks at the clock and at her to-do list and sighs. She’ll come in late tonight after she puts the girls to bed, or even after climbing. Just another hour or so, and maybe she can take a day off toward the end of the month. Those late night hours can be super-productive.

It’s not an unfamiliar feeling, the resignation tempered with resolve. Maybe she’ll work in the satellite office closer to home tonight.

***

It is cold in the brewery, too. But she didn’t think she could write at home, not with dishes sitting and clothes to be put away and a mystery smell. She wonders if Hemingway ever concerned himself with domestic mystery smells. It seems possible that he wrote about one in Paris associated with otherwise virtuous inexpensive housing. But at this point her memory of what she’s read is tempered with a couple of mojitos.

What would Hemingway have thought of #vanlife? she wonders.

He definitely would have approved of the practice of going out to a bar with a pocket keyboard to write among the sports fans and the granite bars and tables and low lighting and fireball shots and big TVs. He probably would have approved of a writing contest like Idol, too, forcing writers to write to deadlines, and to write to arbitrary topics.

She shivers and wonders when she’ll find herself in Key West again. It is possible that it is going to freeze in Tallahassee tonight, for the first time this year. It was cold and dark and damp beside the city pool from 5:30-6:30 this evening as her daughters practiced their synchronized swimming- something Hemingway definitely would have approved of. In addition to making the kids strong in the old fashioned way, the curls of steam from the pool surface into the dark air above the turquoise lit pool wove an ambiance worthy even of the most tortured hero. Though maybe that’s the mojitos talking, too.

Its not an unfamiliar feeling, skimming back over what she’s written; editing and trying to tighten it up. Maybe she’ll get this piece posted in advance of the deadline.