November...

Hmmmm. While I was musing on this very Novembery update, I had a cool Drum'n'Bass track going around my head, by Norwegian hotshots Future Prophecies - Norway being the home of a couple of top class electronic acts i.e. Teebee and Biosphere, both of which I am a big fan of, in fact maybe it is time for a Norway-themed listening phase which would fit pretty well with the November vibe which was supposed to be the whole point of this rambling intro. Anyway the Future Prophecies track which I thought was called November is actually called September - two months out but have a listen anyway...

Future Prophecies - September

...because it kinda sums up the vibe at the moment, maybe a bit too cheerfully* but there's a hint of melancholy and wistfulness which is certainly relevant.

With curious precision, the exciting wintry end to October has abruptly shifted to a grim, damp start to November. Looking outside, it's very dull, very drizzly, very....devoid of meteorological distraction. Thus it forms a grey mirror of personal reflection, an empty canvas for one's thoughts....in the same way that the neutral grey/brown of gritstone radically changes personality with the weather around it, hostilely bleak on a grey day, warmly welcoming in the autumn evening sun...

My thoughts - the low cloud and mist shows back to me - are fairly turbulent, as often happens: An overactive and underexercised mind reacting to turbulent times. Reacting....fighting....rather than accepting?? I have always said that climbing is a metaphor to life, that climbing reflects and accentuates life - what you have in your life, you bring to your climbing. God knows how I've ever managed to climb at all well!! - but that's not the point. The point is more about the challenge and learning and that the lessons presumably go both ways. The fact is, I have climbed at all well (something I value during these times too, as well as during the pleasurable and thrilling and intriguing experience of when it happened - having done something of personal significance, I still have a certain (surprising) level of relaxation and lack of pressure about what I do now - as long as I keep going and keep experiencing, that is), and although it was a long, drawn-out battle, obviously something worked!! So what will work the other way?? Well, that's for me to work out and deal with...


(* perhaps, continuing the theme of suitable music prefixed with the letters No-, I should put on some of the mighty and utterly dark Nordvargr instead?? Maybe...)