Hi all! This is a long and disorganized installment (as always). Enjoy!

Appetizers

• I’m remembering how my life drastically improved when I had a mini piano in my immediate vicinity for every time I heard a song and wanted to quickly transpose it to Eb major. Is this why ye olde travelers brought harmonicas and mandolins everywhere?? Is it time for me to get into travel instruments??? (Yes) (Did you know about jaw harps? Because you should)

• Memento mori when you sit on a frigid toilet seat in the land of auto-heated toilet seats.

Main Dish: Towards a New Conceptualization of Strength

Since I don’t own a car in car country, the climbing gym is quite a journey from my house. I go through almost every mode of non-car transportation to get there-a 10 minute bike ride to the station, fifteen minutes waiting at the platform, 10 minutes on the train, then finally, a 20 minute fast-walk (fast, to maximize time spent climbing before the train home). It takes about an hour one way from my house to warming up on the gym floor. Adding that to the 2-3 hours I usually spend actually climbing, a single gym session requires blocking out 5+ hours from my day. It’s no small undertaking.

I usually take a moment after arriving at the gym to warm up the joints, stretch out the parts that have frozen up after a long day of sitting, and do a body scan. I take stock of which parts hurt; how rested I feel; what parts are tense. I use these observations to make a conclusion on what to focus on during my session. Can I work my project and challenge myself today? Do I focus on honing technique on simpler climbs? Do I gather up whatever functioning parts remain of my ailing body and frazzled mind and climb whatever easy stuff for babies that I can manage? 

These days, I notice more often than not that it’s the last one. One weekday evening, after four consecutive days of fractured sleep in an ongoing months-long fight with poor sleep quality, I made the full 3-leg journey to the gym with every last ounce of willpower I had. All I could manage was to barely warm up and say hi to a couple of regulars before I had to run to catch the train home. When I got back to the house, I looked at the clock. 10pm, and I had dishes to wash and things to put away, things to pack for tomorrow. I dumped all of my things, my chalk bag, my dirty lunch box, my climbing shoes, my work clothes, all of it. I sat down on the floor next to my wretched pile, and then I cried. I cried into my disgusting hands that I remembered had just handled physical change because Japan is still largely a cash society. Then when I finished crying, I washed my hands and face, brushed my teeth, and went to bed.

Sports had always been pretty simple to me since the moment I stepped tentatively into a swimming pool for the first time as a flailing, crying three year old. You train harder for longer, you get stronger. Power go up, muscle get big. You take a vacation for a week, you come back weaker. If you get out of shape, you can gradually build it back up again. Sports were never easy, but they made sense.

This is why it was so hard for me to grasp when power and endurance were no longer things that went up or down in a clean linear trend. My body had started to act erratically in many unforeseen ways-good sleep became elusive, my period was irregular, my body composition was rapidly changing almost overnight. These new and unknown changes wreaked havoc on my climbing-I would spend one weekend being unable to finish my warmup without my shoulders collapsing, and then two days later I would be able to go for hours working long climbs on the steepest walls at the gym. It was very unnerving to watch as my own body, something I’ve lived with and learned about my entire life, started defying the simple logic on which it had always operated.

Looking back now, it is so obvious that I was overextended, mentally and physically. My climbing was naturally affected from the ups and downs of life outside the gym, but it was really hard for me to see past all the thoughts that would beat me up every time I was slipping off jugs. Where were my gains??? Why climbing time go up but climbing performance is like a d20 roll with +0 in athletics?? When I crossed the threshold and clocked in at the gym, all I could think of was how weak and tired I felt, and how awful this session was going to be, again.

Instead of seeing the past eight months of not feeling consistently strong as a sign of regression or personal failure, I can now see that it was eight months of being bombarded by all sorts of crazy stressors from every possible angle. The simple sports equation of try hard + eat good + recovery = gains did not take into account the rest of my life, the changes in my body, the state of the economy, etc. On top of my body going totally rogue, I was spending 15 hours a week on climbing, and 6 of those hours were spent keeping an eye on the clock for the next train, rushing out of the house or out of the gym, trying to be on time for the rigid schedule I was forced to live my life. I was trying really, really hard, and operated on extremely rigid ideas against a lot of odds.

Ironically, I am stronger now in ways I had never been when I was consistently healthy. I now fuel better and have stronger good days than before. Thanks to the guidance of my community, I have a new awareness of foundational climbing form and muscle engagement that has enabled me to produce stronger, more stable movement. Moves I had trouble with previously are now much more intuitive. All the steep walls and cave problems that eluded me before are now open invitations on days I feel even just 70% good. Even if there is no longer any logic connecting how I feel in the present to the me from a few days ago, I can find these moments of strength and growth. I now try to pinpoint those moments, hold on to them, and really savor them.

I’ve also questioned how I think of strength, and what climbing really means to me. Clearly, I was looking for a regular linear progression as a sign of growth and proof of my efforts, but life stopped working in a way where effort = results. I wasn’t adapting my thinking to the new rules of my body and my life. The friction between my expectations and my actual experiences was causing me much distress. I am now realizing that for me, climbing is not even about strength at all.

My new goal is to continue searching for a flexible answer to the question of why I love sports. That answer will get me closer to my real self while I weather the changes I am facing both inside and outside my body. While I do that, I want to build flexibility into everything I do, starting with dialing back my training and giving myself more leeway in my day to day. I’m going to let myself be open to the unpredictable trajectory of my experiences.

Side Dishes

Miyagawa 2, Electric Boogaloo

Back at it again, folks. My climbing group consists of 90% dads and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

One thing I noticed this time was how much joy I felt just from having a nice day out. Some wounded part of me still thinks climbing hard things and getting strong is what gives me value and therefore makes climbing fun, but it could not be farther from the truth. I had probably the most fun on my warmup. Finding my own beta, which ended up being totally different everyone else’s, was exciting in so many ways. All of us, with our diverse bodies, histories, and lives, came together on this day and found our own little way up the same rock, while talking and laughing. And bleeding. (“Bleeding? Nobody’s bleeding! We’re all fine here!” -the dad who was bleeding, to his concerned wife) 

Expectations rob you of joy. When you’re like, “I should be able to do this,” and you do it, you’re like, “ok, this should have been easy for me, and it was. Great.” That kind of rigid thinking puts the blinders around your eyes and shrinks your vision, but you don’t need that because you’re not a race horse. You’re a human that likes poking around, researching unused foot chips because it makes you feel silly inside. You are an athlete who derives deep satisfaction from the feeling when you and your body reach a new understanding of how to accomplish a thing. You are a friend who likes laughing about falling and cheering your buddies on to the top of their warmup. 

While everyone was working the 1dan, I got on the 4Q traverse next to it for the first time since being ill in November… and finished all of the moves! It felt awesome to get over the lip and see the clouds part and hear the trumpet fanfare in my head as I breezed through the last portion to the top. I always forget how high your feet have to be when mantling, and every time I try is one exciting step closer to building that intuition.

The down climb slab was a little intimidating because there’s a lovely crevice right below you that leads to a one story drop onto the rocky river shore below, so one of the dads stood at the bottom directing each of my moves and pointing out where to step. When I was within arms reach, he just grabbed my feet and placed them directly on the footholds. When I got to the bottom, I laughed because I realized how positive the rock is when looking at it from the bottom. When you’re coming down, all you can do is eye zoom on that spooky ass crevice. 

We ended our day at an eroded boulder in the middle of the riverbed upstream that was only accessible because river levels were extremely low. I got on a simple slab problem that turned out to have a pretty challenging move involving placing your foot on a testy spot and trusting it. It was another one of those moments where instead of thinking, “why isn’t this as easy for me as it should be?” I was like, “Hell yeah let’s try a little slab! Let’s see what happens! Oh, it was a little harder than it looked? No problem! Let’s try this tip the tall dad gave me!”

No expectations, just vibing. It’s a lot harder than it seems, especially for me, but every day it gets a little easier.

Whenever I get to the top of a boulder, I always think of this one time in Joe’s when I topped a boulder and my sibling encouraged me loudly from the bottom to (stop looking for the down climb and) take my time and relax.  The view from the top of a boulder is always a privilege. I looked out from the top of the slab beyond the riverbed and thought of how many factors had to align for us to all be here on this rock today. The river level, our schedules, the weather, the fact that all of these dads happened to get back into climbing the same time I did and welcomed me as a part of their new squad, in a new chapter of our lives. 

One of the dads working the nearby overhung problem caught sight of me at the top and cheered from below. The tall dad who was watching over me and giving tips ran through the damp river sand to him going “Look!! She did the slab!” The med school lad working the slab with me gave me a thumbs up from the sit rock. I returned it with a double thumbs up.

A Lunchtime Walk

Hormonal mood swings are a very strange experience, like being forced to sit and watch from the back seat while a neurotic version of yourself is having at it on the steering wheel. Your mind and body react in ways you never do and produce emotions you know are not yours. It’s a waking nightmare where everything you want to be doing (being a normal and calm person) is somehow made impossible.

I had a terrible horrible emotional overwhelm one morning. I almost cried three times in the span of 30 minutes at work just by simply thinking. I seriously considered taking the afternoon off so my hormones could at least thrash me around in private, but I didn’t for silly reasons like being reluctant to use my limited PTO. The institutionalized part of me was also appalled at the idea of taking work off just because I was feeling sad. (You’d think I learned something from the time I got food poisoning that was just bad enough that I had to sit next to the toilet in case of emergency, but mild enough that I brought my laptop with me to the bathroom so I could be working if I wasn’t hurling.)

This was the first time I ever opted to skip my lunch group hangout to eat at my desk. (I heard later that all the aunties were concerned, and the next day they gave me heat packs and told me to watch my favorite movies. I didn’t want to burden them with the full story of my wacky body, so all I had told them was that my PMS was bad.)

The desk lunch was a little depressing, and I was overcome with the urgent need to leave the office for at least a few minutes or else I would perish. After cleaning up my lunch box, I started on a destination-less walk in the neighborhood.

There is a street downtown laid with stones painted a golden yellow. I was told this is likely to indicate its history as a major leg of the Ise Pilgrimage. Lined on the sides are old buildings, some preserved from the Edo period, with faded shackling, stained wooden fencing, and traditional gates. One of these buildings opens up through glass sliding doors to a small, but lovely open show floor with a single grand piano. I learned later that this piano was donated to the community by a local school. On any other day besides the first Saturday of each month, when local musicians are invited here to play a free live show, the doors remain unlocked 9am-5pm for anyone to come and play as they please. 

My desperation for comfort must have guided me through my post-emotional-storm mental stupor, like a person possessed. When I returned to my body, I found myself outside the glass doors in front of a sign propped by the window reading フリータイム, “free time.” Looking past the sign, I could see the old wooden Yamaha covered in a deep green dust cloth. Two empty seats were arranged before the keys in positions that suggested a teacher and a student had been here last.

 One of the things I miss most about my old life is always having an instrument nearby. Piano was less a creative outlet than it was an act of meditation for me. Playing the same songs a slightly different way depending on my emotional cocktail of the moment resulted in vastly different pieces despite the same notes. This way of engaging with music gave me a sense of control, but also freedom of expression through the comfort of repetition. This was especially soothing in times of major turmoil in my life-when I graduated into a weird job market; when I got laid off; when I was searching for another job in an even worse market.

Even a mere seven minutes of play time gave me a much needed moment of peace and release from feeling mentally and physically helpless. 

Unfortunately, I did work a full day after that, but I’m proud to say that in the period after this event up to the time of writing, I have taken a day off purely to destress for the first time in my life. Things are looking up. (Instrument purchases are being considered.)

Trip Report: Yeehaw Ocean Hike & Surreal Basalt Caves (Kinosaki, Hyogo)

I messaged a friend on a whim saying I’m down for a multi-day adventure any time. I was half-joking in a “hahaha jkjk unless??” kind of way, but then they pleasantly surprised me an hour later with a date and a destination. I’m a creature of habit and routine, but I have a small chaotic streak within me that loves spontaneity and lack of plans, so this delighted me very much.

Three weeks later, we set out for the cosy town of Kinosaki Onsen in Hyogo. 

Kansai was in the middle of a cold snap, so we got levels of snow that I, as a Californian, considered significant. Our first plan of the trip was to visit this museum and park that promised views of cool caves and geological fun facts.  

Our destination was on the opposite side of a river  and was extremely difficult to reach by public transit. On normal days, there are supposed to be boats available by reservation so that you don’t have to walk for one hour. As there were certainly no boats running in this weather, we made the trek through wind, rain, and calf deep snow to the icy highway and made it to the museum just as a snowstorm started to kick up.

The museum looks extremely small at first glance, but it was so dense we spent hours walking around looking at all the different rocks and minerals on display. I added basalt to my growing collection of rock words in Japanese–genbugan. Replicas of dinosaur skeletons and fossils of prehistoric creatures decorated the walls of a spacious display room that had a large window we often checked for the status on the weather. We walked around identifying which fossil corresponded with which Pokemon. Valentine’s day had just passed, so the rex in the room was chomping some chocolate for the occasion.

My favorite parts of the museum were two massive xylophones constructed out of natural stone. One of them had a pre-set tune you could play by simply taking up the provided mallets and tapping the stones left to right. The other was a classic 8 note arrangement that you could use to play any piece from the sheet music collection of children’s songs set up below it. I tapped out a few of those, and later came back to try to play some Zelda songs.

We headed out to the caves when the snow let up. I’m extremely glad I made the hour long trek across a spooky bridge to see these geological wonders, because there are no words that can describe how incredible these basalt formations look in-person. 

One of the side effects of climbing is you start to look at stuff around you and wonder how climbable they are. The hexagonal string cheese nature of the basalt reminded me of Vantage in Central Washington when I had gotten on the tallest sport route I ever touched in my life. I was suddenly overcome by the desire to stem up basalt columns with some pals.

The caves are part of a series of five caves in the Genbudo park. Each cave is named after one of four Chinese mythological guardian beasts–Genbudo after the black tortoise, Seiryudo after the blue dragon, Suzakudo after the red phoenix, and Byakkodo after the white tiger. I actually already recognized all of these names from reading Shojo manga as a child (Fushigi Yuugi, iykyk). Genbudo cave was the largest, but Seiryudo was my favorite for the way the formations on the right side of the cave are almost cut off in a way that reveals a stunning array of hexagonal and pentagonal cross sections. The other three caves were unfortunately blocked due to snow.

It turns out that genbugan, the Japanese word for basalt, was coined by someone who saw these very caves and thought the hexagons conjured the image of the shell of Genbu, the mythical black tortoise.

On the way out of the park, we went back to stare at Genbudo for a while and noticed a bee-hive like protrusion on the cave roof. We asked the park ranger about it and I swear this man must have been waiting for this moment his whole life, because he launched into the full multi-year history of the bees attempting to make this cave their home. Apparently a hive of wasps tried to snatch up the spot and gave up, but bad conditions couldn’t stop the bees. At one point there were three beehives hanging off that spot. The park ranger’s voice took a clandestine tone when he admitted to us that when one of the hive structures fell off the cave roof, he did a little no-no and came up to investigate it. Apparently when hives reach the end of their term, they shrivel up and become desiccated like all the life had been sucked out of them. Then they pop off like scabs. Eventually, new bees move in to the empty plot and the cycle continues.

One of the days was dedicated to the Takeno Beach on the north shores of Hyogo. My Californian ass couldn’t comprehend snow, sand, and ocean all in one spot. Our hike of the day was a deceptively mild looking trek that took us up and down steep, snowy hills across a long, peanut-shaped peninsula that ended with a lighthouse. 

Every day some deep part of me keeps urging me to go back to the largest body of water I can find and drink it up with every fiber of my being, like I’m some kind of land-locked selkie. The expansive view of the water from the first summit was so arresting it almost made up for eight months of not living near accessible Big Water. I could have stood and stared at the waves battering the rocks all day if the gusts of wind weren’t slapping all the heat out of my body. The frigid sea was a mesmerizing, tropical turquoise that could not be more different from the gritty surf and the dark, glittering Pacific waters of my childhood memories. I suddenly wanted to look at and be in all the water I’ve ever loved in my life. I didn’t know I could be so greedy. 

We watched as suspicious looking clouds rapidly approached us at the lighthouse and then quickly turned back once the weather started to beat us up. We ended our beach day at the tide pools as the moody morning cleared to a gorgeous afternoon. Rocks, water, and a good  friend, all in one place. We scrambled around sharp, chunky sea rock covered in thin films of deep magenta algae to the end of the tide pool path. I remembered the time I slipped on the algae at the boulders in Kasagi last fall and fell on my ass, twice. I scrambled a little more carefully. 

Not pictured are all of the hot springs (onsen) we went to. I didn’t realize how different onsen could be even just a few minutes walk from each other. Kinosaki Onsen has seven natural springs, each themed with something different. One of them had an outdoor bath in a cave; Some others had small covered gardens; one had two personal outdoor tubs where you can pretend to be Geralt of Rivia and hang your legs off the rim with only the snow and the elderly bather next to you to judge you. Two of the baths were so boiling hot it felt like my skin was being scorched straight off.

On our last day we revisited out favorite onsen, which had a massive waterfall garden before an open air bath, rocks lining several tiers of rejuvenating springs, and a little spot to sit outside to cool off. I noticed a bespectacled young woman in the bath and realized that it was such a shame I could barely see the waterfalls with my blind orbs. Inspired by the woman, I brought my glasses into the bath and gazed upon the garden just as my ultimate onsen dreams came true and snow started to fall gently on my head and into the steamy water.

Later in the changing room, someone called out to me from behind in English, asking if I could help her with the towels. I turned and discovered that it was the woman with the glasses. She sheepishly admitted that she lives and goes to high school here, but she doesn’t know much Japanese. I managed to get her set with the help she needed by asking around with my own meager Japanese and realized 1) my Japanese was able to help someone! 2) How did she know I was fluent in English? Could it be the fact that I also brought my glasses to the bath? Or did the Casio I haphazardly lodged into my bun to keep track of the time give me away? 3) I reached the age where I meet young people and think about how lovely and full of promise they are. I want to gently brush away any anxiety that makes them small. I wondered how life brought her here to this little town in snowy Hyogo. 

I also realized that this trip was the first proper touristing I had done in years, and was probably the first time I had ever gone traveling multiple days with someone who wasn’t my family, and the purpose wasn’t for climbing. I was extremely rusty with the planning and the reserving. I am so grateful for my friend’s patience and delightful spontaneity. There’s nothing like spending a few days outside with great company.

Advancing Social Links 

Anyone familiar with the Persona game series will recognize this system: the development of social relationships is simulated by a mechanism in which you spend units of time to advance your relationship, quantified by levels, with a particular person or group of people. Examples from in-game include school friend groups, the captain of your volleyball club, the old couple who runs the ramen shop you frequent, your dog. You have to choose wisely which relationship you want to advance, as time is limited. Spreading yourself out and leveling each relationship evenly results in missing meaningful milestones and losing chances to form deeper connections. 

It’s a crude way to represent a complex concept as a human connection, but I find nowadays that the way I plan my personal life is converging with the way I used to strategize for the Persona system. My time is limited; my attention is finite. Choosing who I spend my time with becomes ever the more crucial choice. 

Being selective with your time and with the people you surround yourself with is a skill. Saying no is as well. Learning how to effectively employ both in daily life is key.

Media and such

• Onyx Storm, Rebecca Yarros

• Hikari no Toko ni Ite ne, Ichiho Michi (75%)

• Antwaun Stanley

The simple excitement and drama of Fourth Wing that was a welcome contrast to the usual pensive and introspective writing I enjoy seems to have sputtered out in Yarros’ latest addition to the Empyrean series. The absence of a unifying narrative let the plot be pulled in too many directions. I’m excited to do a palate cleanse on some bangers I have queued up.

I’ve been listening to Cory Wong in preparation for his upcoming Japan tour, which is how I landed on the discography of Antwaun Stanley, his featured guest. Stanley is a powerful vocalist with a deep, resonant voice that rocks your brain gently at times and delivers powerful soul in others.

Next Month’s Menu

February was overbooked. I’m planning on carving out time to spend with myself every weekend in March. February had good moments, but was overall a tough month for me, mentally and physically. That is just life. I’m hanging on and I’m doing great recognizing what I need.

I’m writing this as March is already nearly done and I have so many new projects and plans that are making me super stoked for spring! One thing I’ll spoil now is that I’ve getting back into art. Creating things is an essential part of my being and I can’t believe I forgot to do it for a few years. The weather is getting warmer, so I really want to take my art outdoors and on-location. I’m excited to make stuff and share stuff.

Your fatigued but surviving, accidental yeehaw snow-hiker just trucking along through life’s trials, 

Alex