Put Your Mind 2 It

We parked the jeep at the base of Skinner’s Butte and peered up at the rock climbers. It was a real spring day, a welcome break after a soggy gray March that dripped into April. Adrian leaned forward from the backseat and stuck his head between Katherine and me, cranking his neck to see out the windshield. From our viewpoint the basalt columns didn’t look all that tall, maybe fifty to sixty feet max.

In my mind I flashed back to twelve summers ago, seeing myself looking down from above while a scared eight year-old climber froze about half way up.

“Remember?” I asked my granddaughter, placing two fingers against my forehead.

“Put your mind to it,” Katherine said, raising two fingers to her forehead. She turned to Adrian. “And I got four dollars.”

Adrian and Katherine have been a couple for about a year now and it looks as if this relationship is going to last. They are moving together to Albuquerque next week, seeking work in this tough economy, and Katherine will be transferring her scholarship from the University of Oregon to the University of New Mexico. My feelings have been mixed: I rejoice that they have the ambition and fortitude to step out into the world, and I worry that they are not prepared for the challenges ahead. But the memory of the day she climbed that rock column gives me reassurance.

“Four dollars?” Adrian asked. He is always eager to hear stories about Katherine growing up. And I am always eager to tell them.
When Katherine was little, we went on “adventures.” That is what she called our outings. My goal was to have fun together while building on her natural self-confidence. When she was just six months old, we started swimming lessons together. I took her on hikes riding on my shoulders. We went camping. We explored anything that took her interest.
And when she was ready, she chose our adventures and wanted to be the leader. She led the way while we explored tide-pools and climbed sand dunes. The training wheels came off her bicycle. She wanted bigger adventures.

In the summer after second grade, she was ready for a summer camp at the Crux Rock Climbing gym. At least, she seemed ready.

For the first few days she did fine. The kids group consisted of three boys and two girls. She was the youngest. And the boys were intimidating, particularly one older boy who was a bit of a bully. She began to fear them and the climbing wall. Then one day there was an incident of some kind.

The next day, I took some time off from work and came to the gym to talk to the staff and watch her lessons. Another incident happened: Katherine froze about ten feet off the ground and cried hysterically. Although the trainer was gentle and coached her from below, she was not responding. He climbed up and brought her back down.

Her confidence was destroyed and she wanted to quit. We took a break and got a banana smoothie. As we talked, I realized that part of her problem was that she had learned how to climb up, but whenever she wanted to come down, she would slip against the wall and struggle in her harness. Like a cat in a tree, she knew how to go up but not down.

I told the trainer I would work with her, and managed to coax her back into her harness. But she froze immediately and began to cry again. No amount of talking could persuade her to move off the ground.

So we sat on the floor at the base of the wall and talked, not about climbing, but about her confidence. Whenever she had had confidence issues in the past, we talked about the power of mind over matter, about putting your mind to it. And that is when I came up with the hand signal of putting two fingers to my forehead, and saying, “Remember, just put your mind 2 it.” We looked at each other, and held our fingers to our foreheads.

Then I showed her that to walk down the wall, she had to lean back in her harness and trust the harness to hold her. We sat on the floor with our feet against the wall, while I slowly pulled tension on the belaying line. When she was ready, she went six inches off the ground and hung back in her harness. Then we raised it to a foot. She learned that she could walk back and forth across the wall like Spiderman. When her confidence was strong, she went up two or three feet, and climbed back down.

She returned to her class and had no more problems.

At the end of the week, the kids were ready to take it outdoors, and the class went on a field trip to the Skinner Butte rock columns. I came to watch.

The instructors set up the climbing gear and ran their ropes through the anchors at the top of the columns. The plan was to have the kids go one at a time.

“Who’s first?” an instructor asked.

The bully boy grabbed a helmet and confidently strode to the base of the rock cliff, and put on his harness. Then he climbed while all the kids watched. As he climbed, I circled around the columns and made my way to the top to watch from above. I could see Katherine below, and gave her the two-finger hand signal. She nodded, and I knew she was ready.

The boy got about thirty feet off the ground and suddenly froze. The instructors coaxed, but he wouldn’t budge. Then he began to cry and begged to come down. They let him down, and another boy took the helmet, with a pasty look on his face. Sure enough, he got about twenty feet off the ground and he began to cry.

He returned to the ground, and the third boy refused the helmet. That’s when Katherine stepped forward. I just sat at the top of the column and watched.

She put on her harness and started up, carefully finding hand-holds in the cracks of the columns. Half way up she stopped, and looked up at me. I put my fingers to my forehead, and said, “If you come all the way up and give me a high-five, I’ll give you two dollars.” She hesitated for moment then started to climb.

After successfully climbing to the top and back down, she offered the helmet to the kids but nobody took it. I looked down and called, “Do it again for another two-bucks?”
That was twelve years and many adventures ago. Now my little angel is twenty years old and ready for new adventures living on her own in a city a long way from home. And I have the confidence to know she will do fine.

All she has to do is put her mind 2 it.