Monkeybars

I’m at the park between my house and my job. I stand under the monkeybars, looking up at the chipped grey and brown metal of the first and second bar against the flat matte lighter gray sky. I take a deep breath slow, let it out, wiggle my fingers. I look at the tops of my shoes then back at the run, reach up as a jogger runs by. I grab the second bar with both hands.

The hem of my t-shirt pops up. The cold air tells me an inch or two of my belly is exposed. In my mind I can see the pale white skin and the black wiry hair and the curve of flesh. Disgusting. You fuck. I remember my dad yanking me out of a chair by the armpit, his hand like a vice (later as I brush my teeth I will pull up my shirt and hiss from the pain - hissing quietly though, I do not want anyone to hear - as, full of hypochondriac worries about germs and illness, I dab at the cut there with tissue paper soaked in rubbing alcohol), pulling me into a standing position, his face in mine after I spooned a second scoop of sour cream onto my taco shouting “do you wan to be just some fat bloated thing?!” and I think “you know, no, I don’t, I shouldn’t have taken that second scoop.” I blink, breathe, grit my teeth, swallowing the embarrassment and self-dislike and the urge to take one hand an tug my shirt back down over that gap.

I grip the bars, remember the advice I read, “try to bend the bar in half.” I picture that, Superman strength, metal knotted into a pretzel, a club to cave in motherfuckers’ skulls. I kick both feet up off the ground, pitch my head and shoulders backward, hips upward. My left foot is first to land on the first bar monkey bar.

My left foot lands and I see my right foot still in the air. The time before my right foot lands probably takes less than an eyeblink but it takes as long the awkward silence after you fart in front of someone you want to know better and really want to like you, the duration of gaper’s delay on a highway carpeted with shattered glass and clothing spilling from suitcases broken open and someone’s crying into someone else’s arms next to the ambulance. During that long eyeblink I think about muscle imbalances due to poor technique and training and a sedentary job (the hip flexors of desk jockeys, I recently read, tend to be both too tight and too weak) then leap to hypochondriac worries about eventual repetitive stress injuries to my hips and knees which in turn cause back problems then the sounds crowd in, the soundtrack to years of derision from gym teachers and coaches and more athletic friends friends and classmates and my dad (all this is easy to recall as I have echoed it in content and tone in my own internal monologues for so long) comes flooding back, not in verbal detail - it’s more like reverbed babble, like in the wash of indistinct but recognizable sound that is the background hubbub in films of people eating in restauraunts - but the emotional detail - fucking weak sissy wimp faggot pussy pathetic never amount to anything - is loud and clear.

If I am being honest, that racket in my head is part of why I climb on the monkey bars at all. I want to be fitter, in the sense of in better shape. I want that for good and wholesome reasons of health and better performance at rock climbing. I want it also in some kind of moral sense that is hard to put into words and really if I heard it articulate in words, laid out as an argument, I would object to it and call it absurd and offensive, but at an emotional level it rings true, a kind of felt conviction in the superiority of the strong and athletic and the inferiority of the weak and clumsy like me. As I’ve gotten a bit fitter I have lost the permanent sense of being trapped forever on the wrong side of that dichotomy (one that I know - but when it comes to myself do not feel - is stupid and false), permanently marked in the wrong column, because I have begun to believe I might join the other side, a joining accompanied visually by a lot of bright white light and film music and hot chicks and handsome dudes. It’s a bit like entering heaven except as depicted by one of those wannabe hip appeal to the youth rock’n’roll churches. This belief that I might be redeemed and join the athletic elect, while silly and objectionable, is delightful when present. But it’s only occasionally present. Its opposite, the belief that I’m never going to cross that threshold, sometimes hurts more now that it comes and goes. The occasional relief of its absence makes its return worse. The old certainty of my inability to overcome my limitations was less frightening than more recent the doubt that I will ultimately end up finding that I didn’t rise above, but I really could have if I had worked harder.

Climbing upside down across the monkeybars is a mindfuck is what I’m saying, in both the drive to do so and the experience of doing so. My right foot lands and the mindfucked mental noise and self-hostility fades out as the fear of heights fades in.

Around three feet off the ground my stomach gets jumpy and clenched. Around six feet, the height at which my head and torso are currently hanging upside down, my breathing tends to get choppy, percussive, and I can feel echoes or memories of a higher fear – if I go much above six feet my mouth may mutter “oh god oh god” and my hands and knees shake and I want to (and greatly fear that I will) burst into tears. I say I am afraid of heights but it’s more like something inside of me is screaming that I am going to die or break my body into pieces, but not screaming in words so much as in grunts, wails, shrieks, moans. I want very strongly to get down and be back on the ground.

I adjust my feet. My shoes are a bit wet from the grass and don’t have very grippy tread. My body’s scrunched up, my ass below the line of my knees, my palms on bar two maybe ten inches from the tops of my feet as I press my soles into bar one. Breathe. Remember the movement. I rock my body back and forth a couple times, moving from my pelvis and torso, bringing my ass closer to my heels then further away.

On the second or third movement I let go with one hand as my pelvis moves away from my feet. I am less reaching with my arm as I am holding my arm out straight and moving my torso to bring my right hand to the next bar. I shift my weight again to bring my left hand alongside the right. I shift again, this time pick up my left foot and my right hand at the same time. The moment of releasing two points of contact has an unsteady wobble that tightens my stomach with fear but then my weight runs in a line diagonally across my body that feels stable and secure. I could hang there all day. The fear recedes. I narrate the actions - reach, step, shift weight - until I don’t. My body climbs, I move, no words. With mind quiet I repeat this set of motions until my hands are both on the last and my feet are on the second to last rung, again about ten inches apart.

I hang there a moment, breathing. Words come back. So does the fear, visual - I can see myself falling - and tactile or tensile - again tightening of the stomach, staccato again in the breath - and verbal - what if my hands came off first and I landed on my head and neck on the gravel? Could that kill me? What would happen to my kids? Could it paralyze me? Why are you being such a fucking girl and why are you so sexist? Well okay a fall would most definitely cut the shit out of my ugly fucking bald ass head and embarrass me (the fear of embarassment is not named but deeply felt; others would see the fall and the likely tears and they’d laugh, or cluck their tongues and ask “are you okay?” voices high pitched with concern and pity, which is worse because you can shout fuck you and get angry at a laugher, burying shame under rage but the more humane responses would just put that naked shame under a spotlight). Monkey bar mindfuck redux. Second verse, same as the first. Once again the fear of heights and the animal feelings bury all that social and personal baggage.

I reach my right hand forward - downward? - toward my feet, and grab the bar my feet are on. My left foot makes the opposite motion. I pick it up off the rung it’s on, pull it toward the rung my right left hand is on, hook the tops of my toes around the bar. With four points of contact I twist from the core, turning my hips and torso in a circle, pivoting around my right hand, shifting my weight, opening my left hand and letting go - a jolt inside me as I feel a bit of a wobble - and continuing to turn until my left hand’s on the same bar as my right. My right foot’s in mid air for an eyeblink, jolt again, then I am back aright and compact, two hands on one rung, two feet on another run, ten inches distance from palm to feet tops.

Breathe. Rock the body back and forth to start, then I repeat the climb back the way I came, hand foot hand foot hand foot faster going back, feeling more confident - meaning my insides are quiet and wordless and easy, however hard the physical exertion might be.

My hands reach the last rung of this lap, what was the first rung that I stared at as I started. My feet are on the second rung, the one I first grabbed with my hands. I notice a bit of mud on the bar by my hands, mud from my feet, some from today and some from yesterday. As words come back I feel a warm pride seeing yesterday’s mud. I think I must be the only one who has climbed here like this yesterday and today. I’m awesome. I’m tired. Time to get down.

I grip and again picture bending the bar in half, swing my hips and torso away from my feet so my arms grip the rung at a ninety degree angle, tighten my abs and just before I take my feet off I imagine holding myself still through sheer core strength, floating my feet down slowly, gracefully like a ballet dancer. I take my feet off and my feet swing. You’re not strong enough for that, a jolt of the negativity. Both feet on the ground, I let go of the bar, realize that I am breathing hard, that my lats feel tired, that my palms are tender from the weight and grip and cold. I breathe in fast and deep and out the same, give my hands a short shake, stand up tall.

I pick my coat up from the post where I hung it, slip my arms into the sleeves, look around out of the corner of my eye, trying to be casual and pretend I’m not looking. Did anyone see me? That was pretty cool, right? I roll my eyes at myself - old habits - momentarily hear my mother and my father’s disappointed tones of voice - why did you get that B plus? - then follow up with but no, really, that was cool. I remember my rock climbing partners as we praised each other during our ceiling climbs at the bouldering cave, times I landed new moves I hadn’t done before, high fives around, that was awesome dude you did it, say yeah I did, that was cool, I’m proud of that, before the reflex kicks in to shrug aww shucks it was nothing really just luck and I’ve been doing this for a while, it’s not a big deal, I should be better at this than I am. I feel the cold air on my lower abdomen again, I pull my shirt back down, ugh, gross.

I look up again at the monkeybars. For real, that was cool. I glance again around the park again. A woman pushes her kid on the swings fifty feet away. A jogger runs by. Did they see me? I wonder, fantasize that they are impressed, imagine telling them it’s really nothing but not meaning it, then I ridicule the wonder, look back at the bars once more.

As my breathing returns to normal I congratulate myself for the bravery, the concentration it took to deal with the voices and internal pangs I had to tune out to climb up there, and congratulate again for making the shift out of bravery as the fears faded away (bravery being action despite fear, the end of fear means one is not brave but something else).

I fantasize about how many laps I hope to do in a session, imagine washboard abs and bulging muscles, sorry lady sorry fella I’m flattered but I’m married, think about better cardio fitness, long life, good health. That would be cool but above all the best part is in the relief of the doing. I breathe again, in, out, focus for one last second on remembering how it felt to move through space wordlessly, fearlessly.

I pick up my backpack and walk the rest of the way to work.