Today Tre and I went rock climbing. No, seriously. My parents gave him a half-day rock-climbing lesson for his birthday, and we went today. It was amazing. I’m so freakin’ tired I can hardly think.
Anyhow. Tre did most of the climbing, being his birthday gift and all, but I got to go up a few times myself. During Tre’s turn I would stand there, at the bottom of the great huge rock, and watch him scramble up. I did my level best to keep my mother’s mouth shut, but I kept thinking “To your left, baby. No, the other left. That’s it, there you go, now to your right.” I kept as silent as I could and he went right ahead, figuring it out without my advice. The hardest part was when he was he was rappelling back down. He wouldn’t lean back far enough, and his feet would start slipping. In my head I’d be hollering, “lean BACK!” In my head I was drawing diagrams, showing him how staying perpendicular to the rock presses his feet into the rock instead of at an angle, causing him to slip. In my head it was fairly simple.
Then it was my turn. Heh, heh. Not so simple. I kept all the instructions in my mind, but once it was my body going up that rock, those words meant less than they had. I KNEW I should put my weight into the steps, so my shoes could grip the rock. I KNEW I should look up and plan my moves. I KNEW I should lean right back into the harness when it was time to rappel down. I just didn’t want to. I WANTED to do what FELT safe, instructions be damned.
Now, I call that a good start to a new school year. As the year goes by I’m going to do my best to remember being on that rock, sweating. Struggling to remember the instructions. Struggling even harder to obey them. I hope it will help me have more empathy with my boys as they strive to overcome math or phonics or writing. After all, it all seems fairly simple from the ground.