musingsonwomenshealth.com

Reflections on 40 years as a doctor in Women's Health

Of unpathed waters, and undreamed shores


Borders, boundaries, limits -everywhere I turn there are constraints. Of course some are more penetrable than others: doors can be opened, ladders can be climbed, people can be persuaded. Here and there, are immutable, but perhaps only because neither have actual boundaries -just mental ones: clouds that shift like the horizon as you move…

Still, it’s hard to think about boundaries without being mindful of my own -they were important to me when I was young; I didn’t own the space around me, and yet for some reason, I defended it. If you approached too closely without invitation, my walls went up and the gates closed. We’re each different in that respect of course: different cultures, different expectations and different contexts all play a role, but I thought that space was what preserved my sense of self, my ability to maintain agency.

Perhaps because I am older now and more vulnerable than in my youth, it seems obvious that we are a social species, dependent on the cooperation of others. To a large extent, I am who I am, because you are who you are; it is your input that strengthens my output, my personality. As the Renaissance poet John Donne wrote in the gendered mode of his time: No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. I didn’t think like that then, however.

There was a time when I felt Donne was mistaken, a time when I thought we were all islands -or maybe peninsulae at the most. How else could personalities develop as distinct entities? I was young then, and felt the self-assurance I assumed most twenty year old males did at the time; independence was heady… until it wasn’t.

I fancied myself a rock climber in those early days, even though my experience of working my way up a granite face of rock was limited to knowing the names of the instruments that hung from the harness around my waist. I thought it would be obvious if a cam was properly inserted into a rock crevasse that it would hold the rope in case I slipped.

But youth is impetuous, if not immortal, and I was determined to show my new girlfriend Denise, that I could climb a sheer vertical rock face. The crack in the granite I intended to climb seemed doable, and ended at a ledge about thirty metres up the face at a group of trees. I’d shown Denise how to belay me, and I assumed that once at the trees, I could rappel down using them as my anchor.

I struggled into my tight, purpose-built climbing shoes, and chalked my fingers like I saw the other climbers nearby were doing. Then, satisfied that I was ready, I wedged my toes and fingers in the crack where it was accommodatingly wide at the base and started up, glancing back at Denise every so often to make sure she was still watching me.

Things were going well, and I had already inserted three or four of my protective metal cams, until I realized I had only one of them left; I was only about two thirds of the way up, and already a dizzying height above the ground. The crack I’d been climbing was narrowing, and its depth, and hence the purchase for my fingers to grasp, decreasing. I had difficulty inserting the last of my protective devices into it, but with no choice but to continue, I struggled up a few metres further -by then, paying no attention to whether my friend was still watching.

Suddenly I became aware of distant screaming from below, so I chanced a quick glimpse at Denise. She was gesticulating with both arms and pointing at the rock below me. At first I didn’t understand, but when I managed to look below, I saw that each of the protective cams I’d inserted had come out of the rock. And the one I’d just inserted was wiggling with each movement of the rope dangling below it -certainly not secure enough to rely on for a descent.

Panic suddenly dizzied me and my legs began to shake. I was essentially marooned twenty or so metres above the ground with no way of descending safely, and I wasn’t confident enough to tackle the increasingly narrow crack up to the trees with no protection. I began to sweat profusely, arrogance forgotten, and certain that even if I were to survive a fall, I would certainly lose the ability to walk -or maybe even move– again.

And then it happened: a voice calling from the trees above. I chanced a quick look at them, trying not to further destabilize myself.

“Can you tie a one-handed knot?” it yelled.

I nodded, still careful of the extra movements even nodding entailed. I had practiced tying one-hands knots a few weeks before at a climbing wall in a gym. I was pretty sure I could remember; anyway I had no choice.

“Okay, I’m gonna lower a rope to you, then you can climb up the rest of the way…”

“K,” I yelled back and managed to snag the end of her rope as it swung by me. The next phase -tying it- was difficult while the fingers of my left hand were clinging tenuously to the tiny crack for dear life. But, somehow I managed it, and signalled to the woman who had lowered it.

“I’m not strong enough to pull you up,” she yelled. “You’ll have to try to climb up on your own. I’ll just anchor myself and the rope to one of these trees and belay you up.”

I gave her the thumbs up sign with my free hand and started to climb. It was interesting just how easy it was when I felt safe. Despite the increasingly difficult crack and a slight overhang at the top I managed to reach her in a minute or two, all-smiles.

She was an older woman, but clearly spoke with the confidence of an experienced climber as she welcomed me onto her tiny ledge with its clump of trees.

She glanced at the knot I’d tied and signalled to her climbing partner watching from a ledge above us. “He’s up now,” she yelled, and turned to me again. “Must have been scary without any protection, eh?”

I nodded, and thanked her profusely but I was determined to put on a brave face. “Once I tied myself to your rope, though, I thought I did a pretty good ascent, eh?”

She mounted what I thought was a wry smile. “The climb was good; the knot was lousy…”

I looked at her quizzically. “How to you mean?”

She pulled sharply on her rope I’d tied to my harness and it immediately slipped through the knot. “I’m glad you got your confidence back and didn’t have to rely on me…”

“I…” I was more surprised than shamed; more thankful than embarrassed.

“I’m gonna make sure your rope is attached to your harness properly and loop it around the strongest tree so you can rappel back down safely, okay…?” She frowned and looked at the carabiners left on my harness. “You know how to use the figure-of-eight biner for descent, don’t you?” She asked it kindly, but firmly like my mother might have done.

I nodded but was embarrassed when she had to point at it, and then insist I show her I knew how to use it.

When I finally managed to reach the ground and wave goodbye to the woman in the trees, Denise sauntered over with a frown on her face and hugged me. I could tell she was angry, but I couldn’t help smiling at her gentle way of chiding me.

“You were really stupid to try that climb, G,” she said and stepped away from me.

“I made it up to the top, Denise,” I said, feeling a need to save face, I suppose.

“No,” she said, shaking her head and helping me to furl the rope. “You didn’t! It was only because that woman helped you… and because I alerted you to the danger you were in…”

There were tears in her eyes, and when I reached for her hand, she withdrew it angrily.

“You always pretend you don’t need any help, G… but you do. We all depend on each other…!” Then, when we’d stowed the rope and the other gear in my backpack, she stood and stared at me. “I saw a friend here and she offered to drive me home… I’m not an island like you, G!”

Denise disappeared from my life that day as did the woman on the ledge. I wish I’d asked her name, but I didn’t need things like names then, I suppose…

I do now.

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gozzter

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