DAY 132

DAY 132
08.14.07
TREE 49

I climbed this tree in the night just as I had done before. Only, without the company of a friend. This day had been strange, clouded by negative thoughts and feelings of vulnerability. I wasted time, felt bad, got overwhelmed, felt lost. Then I went to therapy and in discussing my current state found a nugget of hope but with hard work ahead. I waited to climb because I had planned for friends to come over tonight. By 10 and no call I figured they weren’t coming. This didn’t help my mood and in turn, as I climbed my tree by the Friary my mood enveloped my body like a fog. But as I rose through the limbs, dealing with branch testing, sandals getting stuck, and searching for my ribbon my fog began to burn off. Again the climb cleansed my spirit, if only for the moment. I found my tag with a sense of accomplishment and relief then felt the absence of friend who climbed with me the first time. Such a contrast of feeling like a kid again, just talking as we climbed, carefree… to climbing the tree in the dark allowing my awareness to retreat into my thoughts during my moments of rest. I swayed with fear, doubted my strength and headed down not looking for adventure. I jumped down and quickly found the fog return.



8-14-08:  A few things to say here:  First The first picture, the one at the top, was taken the following day in the light.  As you can see I only took a couple uninspired pictures the night of the climb.  I guess I was a bit distracted.  This was not a fun and uplifting entry.

Second, I believe this is my first mention of therapy.  Yes, I went… and yes, it was for relationship related things.  That is all I wish to discuss.  Honestly, I can’t remember what we discussed that day one year ago that was so daunting.  I’m good now, so….

Lastly, I am comparing the first time when I climbed with Aaryn Munson.  We had just eaten a big dinner with friends and it was so fun and carefree the first time.  Maybe that is why I was trying to have friends over again, to recreate the experience.  That didn’t work so well. 

Now I will get to something that I am very thrilled to discuss with you and that is yesterdays climb.  Again, at U of L after my parkour session.  There were a good group of guys out and we went pretty hard.  I also had thrown the frisbee with Michael Neureither at Water Front Park just before so I was pretty worn out.  But I had spotted this tall cypress tree on campus before parkour started and was ready to climb despite the fatigue.  The tree looked like it was going to be a good challenge and could offer a path to the very top as have other cypress trees I have climbed in the past.  Unfortunately, by the time I did start to climb it was 11 pm, and very dark so I did not get a picture of the entire tree in context with the surrounding campus buildings which would have given you a good sense of the size of the tree and height of my climb. 

To start took some effort.  As is often the case is well groomed areas, this tree had no limbs within an easy reach.  It did, however, have some bumpy parts on the trunk which were of little help, really.  Cypress bark is smooth and does not provide good grips with hands or feet so I did my best with squeezing with a wide grip to hold myself up.  My feet did their best to get secure placement but slipped over and over anyway.  I was lucky enough to have reached a tiny limb whose strength was questionable but worked nonetheless.  From there, my only real substantial hold I lunged tothe first large branch and made it.  Oddly, one side of this tree was bare of limbs, and not the side facing the near building but the opposite.  It forced me to climb up the other side which was actually so full of limbs I had to carefully snake my way through.  Then the trunk split and at that point there was a break in limbs.  I worked my way up using the trunk and the offshooting vertical branch and past what looked like an animal’s nest.  It could possibly have been just a collection of dead twigs and leaves, but I was careful just in case.  Once past this obstacle there were plenty of limbs to climb on all around the entire trunk making my ascent to the top somewhat easy.  I was getting pretty tired by this point and on one limb completely missed seeing a sharp twig that really scratched my knee.  It went so deep I didn’t need light to tell me it was a gusher.  At the top I rotated around and hooked my leg over a small branch to take a seat and free my hands for the careful night shooting.  Thankfully there was no wind to make me sway and mess up my long exposure shots.  I got some good ones of the surrounding campus and nearby sights.




It is kind of hard to tell in the above shot, but it what I could see looking up.

I didn’t even mean to get my bloody knee in this one, but there you go.

This was my attempt to zoom all the way in on the two downtown buildings I could see.  Zooming only makes night photography harder so the image is a little… funny.

This moon shot I took by setting the camera on my shoulder and hoping the moon was in the shot.  Since I couldn’t really move a lot in my position I took quite a few blind shots with the camera resting on my shoulders.


This shot and the one below were taken by me stretching my arm outside the area of the leaves and using a flash to try and capture the near by roof.  As you can see, I was well above this large three story building.


And lastly, the bright stadium lights. 

I put my camera away and sat there thinking that no one would ever know I was up here.  It is so dark and I am so high it would just be so completely unlikely for anyone to spot me.  Being so totally hidden all while having such a wide view is quite incredible.  But I was sweaty, dirty, and bloody, not to mention exhausted and still had the bike ride home, so I made my way down. It felt easier on the descent which was what I needed.  But it felt so good to hit ground and then look back up at the huge tree and feel that sense of accomplishment.  It gave me the energy I needed to get home.