A beginning of sorts.
A new life, new friends, new hope,
mainly of being someone,
other, someone else.
So, what did you offer me?
Ill-equipped, ill-sorted,
yet keen, naive keen.

The day was all wrong,
of course. Coarse drizzle,
the Dartmoor speciality.
Plymouth weather.
It insinuated itself
through every opportunity
my inadequate gear offered.

Then there was the rock.
short, brutish, terrifying.
Black, sharp, rough.
I had not thought to actually climb,
just to be there,
to catch some reflected glory.

But, not entirely ready,
(and I’m still not,)
I was tied on, and hauled up.
Slab route.
Then I watched the others
try, some were as bad as me.
Others fought a bit harder.

Cuts, bruises, but above all,
searing damp.
For what?
To edge up a short rock-face,
More towed, hauled,
than climbed.
The reward?

A brief idea of movement,
suddenly realising the view
from the top wasn’t important.
Not that there was a view that day.
A sense of trust, of believing.

But also, a small warmth
in the joy of being,
there, then.
Even a little joy,
at being me, for once.

We roped up mushroom wall.
I failed on that, flail handed,
perplexed,laughing.
Two feet from the top,
though I enjoyed it,
more than any succeeding.
I proved I was safe.

The joy was still extant,
the lack of purpose fulfilling.
Which beer and bullshit later,
still didn’t dampen.
Not as much as the rain.

Not love. That’s not what it was.
Not the awakening of the love
I now hold.
Something I hadn’t felt before.
Not for a person,
not for a place,
not for anything tangible.

Just the rightness of where I was,
and the people,
the rock, the rain.
All were right
for their own sake.
So many times since.
And still more to come.
I hope.