We were swinging freely almost twenty meters above the ground. The 9-mm climbing rope went through the two rappel rings at the top, 100 feet up from the ground, a “free-hanging rappel”, i.e. a lowering technique where there are no walls around or adjacent to you: you’re lowering from what is basically a hole in the “ceiling”. In this case, we had just rappelled from one of Moab’s greatest arches, into a huge space that amounts to a very wide, and beautiful, open cavern: a unique opportunity to swing. So we each took turns: one of us belaying, one of us swinging, and the third taking the video. The swinging consisted in tying oneself into one end of the rope through one’s harness, just as if one were climbing, while the belayer was holding the other end of the rope (which, in this case, was running through the two rappel rings over 30 meters overhead). The person swinging scrambled up the inside of the wide open cave as high up as he could before reaching a ledge from which he jumped off after ensuring the belayer had him tight on the rope. Basically, a huge, human forced (& damped) pendulum. The swings are huge: you’re swinging almost twenty meters above the ground on a rope length of almost sixty meters, high up into the air, blue sky and red rocks all around you. A mistake from your belayer and you could plummet to the ground or crash into the rock wall.
I did this on Saturday with my French climbing buddy and another close buddy of his who is now also a buddy of mine — another lovely cis-het guy that I can add to my list of fun, trusted, solid adventure buddies.
I wouldn’t have done this with just anyone. I knew I could do it with these two guys because I knew — I know — I can trust them blindly. And the reason I know that I can trust them blindly is because I know — I see it, I feel it — that they care: they care about each other, about me, genuinely, sincerely, fiercely even.
These are the people I will entrust with my life because I can, because they have my back, always. Not only in words but in actions, with their actions and their behaviors. These are the cis-het men who treat me just like one of them; who won’t say or do anything to out me; who have my back if someone comes along and says that “you need a penis to be a man” (which happened on this weekend trip); who share food and water bottles and cans of beer with each other; who tape each other’s injured fingers up and teach me how to tape my own; who respect my moments of fear and give me the time and/or encouragement I need to overcome those fears; who act vulnerable and explicitly affectionate with each other, thus allowing me to be my authentic self with them — with all my quirks and vulnerabilities and even my cockiness.
My friends are solid. All of them, regardless of gender, geographical location, or interests & experiences we share. We all have our moments of checking out or messing up but the times we show up for each other outweigh those lapses by far. The consistency in the ways my friends show up for me, time and again, in different circumstances, over years and geographical distances, is what allows me to trust them. The consistency between their words and their actions is what allows me to trust them.
And I think trust is for me the greatest, deepest, most fundamental form of love: if I can trust someone, then I can be my whole self with them, my authentic self, even my most vulnerable self, because I know that won’t scare them away from me. And this effectively allows, inspires or pushes me to be my best self.
As Mt. Joy sings in “Highway Queen”:
“…
I want you to know I’m behind you
…
And I want you to know nobody’s leaving
Honey, I ain’t scared of your demons
…
That’s just what makes you a real thing
”
The Little Prince and the Fox 