The Mountains Between Our Ears--T.S.M. Newsletter
Greetings from Peaklessburg.
I recently learned that Alpinist Magazine was including book reviews, so I reached out to Derek Franz, the editor-in-chief, and said that I should reach out to Abbey Collins — the voice of the Alpinist Podcast — if I had one to pitch. Turned out that they didn’t need me to review Other Everests for the next issue, since they had someone already on it. Good for them. Then a few days later, Derek reached out to me directly and said the review fell through and could I review it in three weeks?
I love a good deadline, but I hadn’t ready anything under such pressure since college. If I had a library book that took me longer than the renewals, I was usually resigned to paying the late fees. So somehow, between work and family, and diligently saying no to everything else for three weeks, I am happy to report that my brief thoughts on Other Everests will be in Alpinist 89 this spring.
I have a fuller version linked below, as well as several other previous posts. I went on a writing spree this past couple of months, so I don’t even link to all of them, but I thought these are the ones you’d wouldn’t want to miss. Also, after the post catch-ups, I talk about finding Francis Sanzaro’s books and how that means the world to me and my very active and anxious mind.
RECENT POSTS, in case you missed them...
Grateful for Reading ‘Forget Me Not’ by Jennifer Lowe-Anker
What I didn’t like about the book was that I knew the core of the story and I was always bracing myself. It’s sad. And it’s beautiful. It actually made me appreciate the precious time with my own family a bit more. Actually a lot more.
Do Classics Have to be In Print?
Among the Kendal, Banff, and others, only the National Outdoor Book Awards, or NOBA, has a category called “Outdoor Classic,” and one of their requirements is that the nominated book be in print.
Climbing at 45
It goes without saying, I have always read and wrote more about the mountains than I ice climbed, bouldered, and pulled plastic. Now finishing my 45th trip around the sun, the old struggle to climb better and harder has become a struggle to climb at all.
Chomolungma is Interesting Again in ‘Other Everests’
Many of the the contributors to Other Everests expressed that their articles are the result of looking at the materials the explorers and climbers, especially from the 19th and 20th Centuries, and looking beyond the photos, correspondence, and logistics records and into the “shadows” they created about the stories and world beyond the adventurers’ personal stories from a Western perspective.
LOOKING FOR ROCK… AND ZEN
I have long been looking for Zen — the sweet spot in life where I’m good with me, don’t care what others think, and the results of my efforts are better than satisfactory. All that was because the opposite was true in me. Overall, I found it hard to be in the moment and let my guard down to relax, even when I was supposed to be on a break with the kids. Vigilance prowled me.
Last month, I learned why: I live with high-functioning anxiety. It is not recognized in the medical manuals, so it is usually diagnosed with its parent generalized anxiety disorder, which, interestingly, is lived-out quite different. I can appear well adjusted and even successful, but I find it difficult to relax. However, among other things, it makes me acutely aware of people around me and what they think. In a conformist, competitive environment, like I was in Washington, DC, it was like a superpower in retrospect, but it was hard on my mental health, which affected my body’s health.
The recommended remedy was 1. exercise, 2. meditating for mindfulness (controlling what you can control), and 3. knowing your personal core values (to prevent comparisons with others.) I’ve been implementing all of these with serious intention since I realized this, to life-changing success.
In seeking that Zen-like state over the years, the closest I ever found was when I climbed (mostly through bouldering) and I often pondered why. Francis Sanzaro asked himself the same question, and even wrote a book, The Zen of Climbing, which you probably already knew about. It was first published in 2023. I just discovered it by dipping into a podcast where Sanzaro was interviewed, which was, coincidentally, right after I could discovered high-functioning anxiety as something to be managed. Sanzaro also wrote and published The Craft of Bouldering, which I purchased and started reading.
Both both books apply Sanzaro’s education in philosophy and personal drawing toward Zen. Sanzaro is principally a boulderer and many of the things he says about activity, I have thought, though not as articulately or in a full sentence. In one passage, Sanzaro talks about a climbing video with Nalle Hukkataival “standing in the street with the world flashing neurotically around him,” and how the scene captures the boulderer’s mind of focus in the midst of a lot of noise and distractions. He uses the phrase “silence in the noise of choice,” which resonates to me for something to be attained.
I don’t tend to read guidebooks and climbing instructionals with the same fascination as I did in my 20s and 30s, but this book clearly has more meat or juice for living than just the climbing moves and knots. Of course, I realize that climbing is not the antidote for the peace or Zen I want, but it has long been a gateway. Seems like it still is.
Thanks for reading.
Andrew