Thursday, June 11, 2009

Transience

This June has seen some remarkably changeable weather. The sky is constantly shifting as clouds mass over the foothills and empty onto the plains. The sun breaks through with shafts of gleaming light picking out ridges and valley, moving with silent and unbelievable swiftness over the land below. Nothing stays the same for too long and even as Boulder Valley glows an intense emerald green, there is the certainty that the heat of July and August will turn this joyous riot of foliage yellow and brown as summer reaches its height.

It's a great time to be a painter and watch the rapidly changing light and color and try to find ways to capture some of the essence of this movement and its beauty. Yet there is also the sober reminder at its heart that nothing exists forever. There is a Latin phrase, from Vergil's Eclogue IX (thanks Google), Omnia fert aetas, animum quoque, meaning "The ages carry everything away, even memory itself."

I am reminded not just of recent tragedes such as the deaths of Johnny Copp, Micah Dash, and Wade Johnson but of a recent item that surfaced in UKClimbing.com about the demise of some "crucial" holds on a 14a route known as Mecca. The reaction from many was shock and dismay followed by proposals to "restore" the route to its former condition. A curious but understandable response from climbers, to want to hold something in place that once was. There is another great sentence, this time from Leonardo da Vinci, who studied the ways in which erosion shaped the world. Dimmi se mai fu fatta alcuna cosa, which reads, "Tell me if anything was ever finished." In this world nothing is, a thought that inspires both wonder and despair.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I am reminded not just of recent tragedes such as the deaths of Johnny Copp, Micah Dash, and Wade Johnson but of a recent item that surfaced in UKClimbing.com about the demise of some "crucial" holds on a 14a route known as Mecca. The reaction from many was shock and dismay followed by proposals to "restore" the route to its former condition."

To somehow suggest that the loss of 3 young climbers in the prime of their lives in an avalanche is in any way comparable to holds breaking off a rock climb because both are examples of "transience" is surely a strong contender for the most tasteless and vapid comment ever published in a climbing blog. Congratulations.

Peter Beal said...

Pretty strong comment but the point I am trying to make is that nothing endures forever. What appears to have killed the three climbers in China was falling ice and snow, an instance of the structure of the mountain disintegrating and the way in which mountains are formed in the first place. The block at Raven Tor was a micro-example of the same basic principle at work. The world falls apart even as it renews itself. Climbers deliberately put themselves in the middle of this geological/meterological minefield and occasionally people get seriously hurt or killed. While the community rightly mourns the deaths of these young men, we all go out the next day and go climbing again. This is the way climbing works and I have seen it happen again and again

Again usually I don't put up with anonymous comments but this one was pretty obviously missing the point I was making. While the commenter is entitled to his/her opinion, I am not concerned about "taste" or vapidity but about the truth as I see it.

Peter Beal said...

This is to KM,
I am sorry you are offended but you can get your point across without obscenities. I don't write to be "fairly entertaining" and don't particularly care if your sensibilities were offended here. You are welcome to stop reading whenever; right now seems to be a good time.

Thanks,
Peter

kevin Murphy said...

If you don't want feedback on your postings, block comments. Watch what you say. And if you don't care if you offend people, whats up, are you that cold. Do you need a hug. I will not post here anymore. But I will be lurking...

Peter Beal said...

Again to KM,
I can take it just fine thanks. Just don't waste my time and yours with your spew.

Peter Beal said...

To KM and any other readers,I always publish reasonable obscenity-free comments. If you are warning me to "watch what I say" I would say that someone else has the sensitivity issue here. If the truth offends people, that is their issue, not mine. I don't write to entertain or amuse. Readers are free to go elsewhere for that.

I am not cold or indifferent about the fate of Jonny, Micah, and Wade. I agree with everyone else that their deaths were tragic and unnecessary. So are the many others that have happened in the Boulder climbing community. A more careful reading of my post would show that I am not holding their demise in China as equivalent to a hold falling off a sport climb, but as representative symptoms of the same basic truth about the universe, that things change and fall apart beyond our ability to control them. If you can't handle that truth, I am sorry.

And that's enough about this topic.

Micah Bryan Humphrey said...

Peter,
I got your back...
Sorry we couldn't meet up this trip. The weather has been less than accommodating but I have been able to get out here and there and sample the excellent bouldering on Flagstaff and the Flatirons. Thanks to your blog, writing, and videos I have been able to check out some amazing problems. Hopefully I will catch you next time around.

Peter Beal said...

Thanks for writing Micah. I climbed with a visiting Norwegian scientist, Oyvind and we had a great time at Flag. The weather has been pretty erratic so I hope you got some time in between showers.