The Climb
According to Ella the time is seven clocks, which means we’re long overdue a post.
Anyone who is a parent or knows a parent knows that parenthood is a bit like climbing Mt Everest. Folks embark on the climb because they’re told there is thrill and beauty. They’re told nothing else can match it – that the climb will define us and change us and so folks pack their bags and sign up because yes thank you to thrill and beauty and a life-changing, us-shaping path.
Anyone who’s climbed Mt Everest or knows someone who’s climbed Mt Everest knows that once you actually set out on the climb, the moments of thrill and beauty are dotted upon an otherwise tedious, treacherous, uphill path. At some points, folks cling on so white-knuckled and out of breath they can barely think straight. Moments of beauty and bliss spread out like drops of water in a drought. The climb goes up, up, up and folks are tired, tired, tired. They just want to nap, nap, nap.
Folks soon realise that this doesn’t change. The climb does not get easier, but rather folks get used to it so it becomes the new normal. Lungs adjust. Muscles adapt. Mental states change. And so when beauty does hit them within their climb, their new senses – the raw, open, alerted ones – take it in on a different level. This beauty means more now. It’s been earned. Fought for. And it’s capable of flooding an entire body, leaving folks stunned, almost empty, but in the right kind of way, kind of like a divine bolt of lightning.
I have many happy places – many tried and tested places of beauty – and I call on them often to remind myself to look for the view when my eyes are on my feet, stumbling through the climb. Many of them are dotted within the place we live.
Combine these happy places with the vibe of a long weekend and yesterday, I filled up my hiking boots with enough zing to get me to the next rest spot well before I’d predicted.
Boats filled the pier one by one, that holiday feel so palpable in the air. Teenage boys packed their kayaks with eskies and fishing rods and took off down the creek, mangroves lining the horizon, groups of pelicans wading in the water, birds in a perfect V flying through a crystal blue sky. “Mummy, I’m paddling!” Ella calls out and I cheer back, giving her the response she’s after.
Her protective little hand…..kills me.
The Red Tent 
2 Responses to “The Climb”
So very true.
Somedays it is just one foot in front of another…it is nice to lift your head once in a while and even if you don’t see beauty you at least see progress.
And Billy looks so big!
It took me ages to cut Charlie’s hair (he was well over two) and now when I look back at pre hair cut photos, I think poor kid!
And I LOVE that photo of her out walking in your shoes!
That first 12 months is surely the hardest. Such a test of endurance. Ha, I’m so regretting cutting Billy’s hair that I don’t think I’ll do it again for a year!