I'm a woman

I'm a woman
Photos copyright Laurence Gouault
No reproduction on other media without the photographer's permission.

Monday 21 January 2013

The Price of Magic, by Stevie Haston

Thanks to Inigo Taylor for the pictures of Stevie climbing Apricot Tart.


Behind most great deeds can be found simple   hard work. Work is mundane, boring, sweaty, and sometime painful. People just admire the magic. I'm lying on the sofa in pain, my forearm are aching, my body is bruised, but my mind is content, for I'm starting to make magic.
Climbing is one of the most magical sport there is, you can tame dragons, you can subdue huge overhangs, you can bend gravity to your will, all you have to do is work, work, work... And of course nobody want to do the work.
Yesterday I was climbing with the Maltese climbing club, Maltese climbers and climbers from al over Northern Europe, all outstanded by the magic of climbing. But their magic is small, there are not powerful wizard, there are just baby wannabe wizard, but there are starting the journey.
Ben Moon and Jerry Moffat once said that climbing becomes magic when you don't notice a certain difficulty of moves. When they said this, I felt insulted, because it was my level at the time, there were obviously correct! I was only a wannabe baby wizard. Now I'm the white grey hair powerful wizard, who has unnatural long life, and I have found the Ring that Gollum try to destroy. And indeed it is the Ring of power, it is a Ring of ever ending work, training and learning.  It ain't just saying abracadabra....Long live the magic in climbing, we all need magic in our life, but don't ever forget the price of magic...you earn magic.