What A Difference A Year Makes

April 29.

Wow. Here I am. One year to the day of that event that truly changed me.

After three surgeries, a month of being attached to a machine, 6 months of continuous rehab, then more months of slowly building back my range of motion and now, tackling the rebuilding of my muscle strength, I’ve seen a lot of ground, physically and emotionally. I’ve been to some dark depths, from intense regret, hopelessness, fear and self-flagellation to some real heights of pride, hope and determination.

It's not at all hard to believe that it's been a year. It has gone fast, but then again, it’s been so packed full of hard work that I almost feel exhausted just thinking about the metaphorical mountains I’ve climbed since then.

I remember all those months ago being told that it would take about a year for me to know what the “new normal” would be for my arm. So it was always in my mind as a benchmark for what to expect. A year later, I have all but a few degrees of my range of motion back when it was predicted by doctors that I’d lose at least 30 degrees on each end of my range. I’ve recently gotten on a regular strength-training regiment to get my muscle strength back (the arm is still shockingly weak) and am slowly getting back into climbing, although more snow than rock.

So, physically, my recovery has been tremendous. I attribute that to an amazing surgeon and a lot of hard work on my part, not to mention stubbornness and determination. Looking forward, in the sense of how much my arm has improved and continues to improve, I will admit, I have become greedy: I will keep working until it’s clear that I’ve hit the recovery maximum. In fact, my dear friend CJ had to remind me the other day how much I have to be grateful for just in terms of where I’m at today- it has only been a year and I am so way beyond what anyone expected. This gives me such an amazing sense of inner triumph that is difficult to describe in words.

There is something thrilling about having refused to accept all the medical prognoses and to have been right. I was told over and over not to get my hopes up, with words like, "you won't," "you can't," "you shouldn't." But something in me- whether it was wisdom or denial or just a sheer fiery stubbornness- wouldn't listen. I'd like to take this moment to thank that iron will- to thank that spirit in me that said, literally (to one doctor's face), "You don't know me very well, do you?" They would smile at my determination, sort of look at me knowingly in one of those slightly dismissive, pat you on the shoulder, "oh, aren't you sweet, being so determined" ways. Mind you, they meant well but I just used that brush off as more reason to work hard.

The mind is a powerful thing. I won't go into the details of my personal thoughts and beliefs on this but I will say that had I just accepted their prognoses, I probably wouldn't have worked so hard and most likely, I would have fulfilled their predictions.

I often laugh about going back to all those doctors and therapists who said, "you can't," "you won't," "you shouldn't" and (only in my silly imagination) flipping them off while fully extending my left elbow that I supposedly would never be able to fully extend ever again. But seriously, I really don't have any hard feelings towards any of those people. They all meant well. They were all trying to protect me from getting my hopes up and being disappointed.

In my more dramatic moments, I like to toy with the idea of being a medical miracle. And yet, it puts a lump in my throat to remember telling a friend exactly *that* only a week after the accident. I do believe I said something to her like, "They tell me I will lose almost half of my range of motion. But those are just statistics and statistics are averages and to make an average you have to have people on both sides of the middle- so *I* am going to be that medical miracle that doesn't fit their average. All I have to do is beat the odds and I can do that."

And I did.

I just now realized, as I'm typing this, that up until this moment, the thought has never crossed my mind or lips, "I am proud of myself." But I suppose, if there is any occasion for finally taking a deep breath and feeling that, it is today.


Emotionally, this life-changing, Tamara-remodeling event has also shifted quite dramatically. For one, it used to be the center of my life and now, is just one of my many ongoing projects. I still look back on this day a year ago with a pang of regret, just a little hint of sadness of having had to go through this to begin with, but I am keenly aware of the many tremendous lessons and the hard-earned wisdom I have gained throughout this process. While some part of me still wishes this had never happened, another part of me wonders if this event is exactly what woke me up and became my “rock bottom” to push off from, like a spiritual springboard. Who knows where I would be today if I hadn’t fallen that day. Maybe I’d be worse off than I am now, maybe better.

But either way, while this event presented some of the largest emotional, physical and spiritual challenges of my life, it certainly taught me how to truly care for myself, how to believe in myself and most importantly, how to have patience with myself.

I am still learning this, however.

When I’m at the gym, sometimes I’ll get frustrated and a little emotional bumping up against my limitations, which are still significant: my left arm is often only able to lift less than half of what my right arm can lift. On some weight machines, depending on how it works my muscles, I can only lift a measly 10 pounds. At these times, I tap into an emotional exhaustion, otherwise known as a complete lack of patience. Yes, at these moments I can feel the weight of this past year and I hear a little voice throwing a tantrum in my head, “god damnit, I’ve worked my butt off for a year and I can only lift 10 frigging pounds?!”

But one of the times I verbalized this out loud to a friend whom I like to call J-dot, he wisely responded, “Yes, but a year ago you didn’t even have an elbow.”

Ah, yes, now that is some true perspective.


If I had to sum it up in a phrase, I’d say, “what a difference a year makes,” the ol’ Maria Grever & Stanley Adams song, sung by a goofy little voice in the back of my head.

From 2006 to 2007, I watched my life go downhill fast, then crash and burn in April. I’ve gone from- a year ago- being a broken woman, both in spirit and in bone, having hit rock bottom (pun intended) to now finding myself “lapping” the old Tamara, even the Tamara before the initial downturn. Sure, there are bumps in the road still, but man, if nothing else- aside from all that caring and patience stuff- I taught myself this past year that when I put my mind to it, I’ve got an iron will. I am stronger than I ever gave myself credit for.

And wow, what a difference a year makes!

(and for another reason why today is significant: those who want to read about the other said "ongoing projects" can read about the biggest one here)

Looking Forward

In the process of looking back on my past, when I was beginning to accept all the ramifications of my rock climbing accident, and when I finally started to accept that there was no way I could change it, no way I could go back and make different decisions, that empty sort of surrender was partially made more bearable by the hypothetical ability to prevent a similar misfortune from befalling others in my outdoor community.

Somehow, if what I learned from my experience could be worth something to someone else, maybe it could feel less like a misfortune and more like an opportunity; my loss, their gain.

To draw again on the philosophy of embracing both loss and gratitude, I am reminded of the many times I've been told by friends or family, "In the Japanese language, the same character is used for both the words 'misfortune' and 'opportunity'." I am also reminded of the yin and the yang, the dark and the light. While I don't necessarily have control over the 'dark,' over the loss, at least in some ways I feel like I have some control over the 'light,' the gratitude, the 'opportunity.'

So equally for my own healing and in an effort to try and make something positive of a difficult experience, I recently showed up as guest speaker for this year’s current students in the “Advanced Rock” class which I was taking when I fell.

Each year, there is a safety lecture and this year it was entitled, “To Make Aware, Not Scare.” Because I had heard through the instructor that there would be many examples of accidents had by AR students, most of who fell on non-difficult terrain simply because “they lost focus,” I was afraid that my accident, too, would be framed with that approach: that I’d simply lost focus.

And because I'd often thought of going back to the AR class to speak, there was a certain amount of anticipation building up. I went in almost wondering if I would need to defend myself and explain how my fall wasn't due to just simply losing focus- that actually, I'd been quite focused that day. Having been through a fairly serious accident, I found it difficult to hear others explain away accidents simplistically, especially when it was about just being in the wrong headspace.

I wanted mostly to talk about the value of fear and respecting one's limits. I had remembered many a discussion during the year I took AR about how to get past one's fear of climbing. It had been rather simplified as, "just breathe and smile." Throughout the class, because of my own fear of heights, I'd struggled with finding a balance between respecting my limits and having a "healthy amount" of fear (that amount is something of which I'm not certain) versus challenging myself and trusting the system. Even before I fell, I resisted all the simplistic talk.

So I told my story.

I explained how the whole thing unfolded- how ironically, I'd been incredibly careful for the duration of the course and then in a moment of feeling strong, I "went for it" and that's when I fell. I talked about how I personally believed that being a beginning leader was not necessarily the best timing for challenging one's climbing technique and skill. And I shared the ways I felt I had misjudged the situation and what I would do differently if I could. I showed x-rays of before and after.

And most of this time, I was shaking.

I don't know why I was nervous. All I really wanted to say was, "don't do what I did," which was an instinctive reaction, but yet I knew it was much more complicated than that; my story was not about one wrong decision existing in a vacuum.

It's our human nature to want to simplify things and make them more black and white than they may actually be. This is also where our cause/effect thinking gets the best of us. Still, in the end, I think the theme of my presentation was to carefully consider the consequences when deciding to lead something unless one has total confidence in their ability to make it to the top without a chance of falling. That was really how I came to sum up my fall, complicated as it was: in that moment, I lost sight of the consequences of not being able to make the last move, considering that my last piece of pro was almost 10 feet below me.

I wasn't entirely sure how my presentation was received; it certainly was much more straight-forward than all the times I'd imagined it in my head. There were thank-yous and smiles from familiar faces. There were some questions about the details of the accident. I summed it up with, "be careful out there."

And then as I was leaving, the main speaker of the evening, the man who started the class back in the 70s, found me in the hallway.

"I'm so glad you said what you said in there," he began, which immediately melted any last butterflies or any thoughts I'd had of "did what I say amount to anything?"

I don't remember the details of how he elaborated the point after that, but I was relieved that my challenging of the "just breathe and smile" approach had not fallen on deaf ears.

The golden nugget of the evening was the last thing he said to me before he left; it was something I'd fought for and worked hard at.

He said, "That experience you had out there, that accident- it sounds like quite the day, that maybe you even cheated death that day. And that rock might have broken your elbow, but it's clear that it sure didn't break your spirit. "

And with that, I finally took a deep breath, maybe the first of the evening.

It didn't break my spirit....

Of course, I already knew this on some level. It wasn't the first time I'd heard this. Hell, I was cracking jokes with the anesthesiologist on the operating table, regardless of how scared I was. But I think hearing this from an outsider- someone who really didn't know me, as opposed to a friend of mine- meant a lot. I felt a part of my insides relax.

I don't know that I will go back to future AR classes to give that same talk, to tell my story. Maybe I will. But there was something in me that needed that opportunity particularly this year, the first class since the whole thing, as the one year anniversary approaches.

Finally, I came to accept that it was okay if what I said didn't have any effect. Attached as I may have previously been to the idea of turning this obstacle into an opportunity, specifically by preventing anyone else in AR from falling, I realized that you don't get a message through by shaking the audience by the collar, but by planting a seed and walking away.

Regardless of whether my presentation mattered or not, it was still a step for me, another step towards the opportunity of this story- another chance to continue to look forward, looking for the light.

The Fall

April 29th, 2007 was a sunny, beautiful day at Smith Rock State Park. I was paired up with one of the climbing club's strongest climbers for an instructor, a middle-aged fellow who had climbed, let's just say, "a lot of impressive stuff." I'll call him John.

Right out of the parking lot, I gave my usual disclaimer: I was primarily interested in learning to place gear well, I was not looking to push my climbing technique on lead. He wondered why. The conversation went something like this:

"Because I don't want to fall."
'Have you ever fallen before?"
"Not outside, only in the gym."
"Then there's no reason to be afraid of it, right?"

I didn't grasp his logic there. Confused, I didn't push the point.

For the morning, I led strongly. I was feeling good. John climbed up to investigate my gear placements on my first two climbs and was quite satisfied. He showed me a less common but effective way to place nuts: rather than placing them so that they were getting the most surface area contact on both sides, if I found the right sized notch, I could slip the nut behind that notch and use the entire head of the nut like a stopper. There was no surface area contact happening this way, other than with the very top of the nut being pulled against the rock, but regardless, with the right placement and slinging, there was no way that the nut could be pulled from the crack

The next climb of the day was Carabid, a 5.6 trad route that John suggested, partially as a way to get out of the hot sun. After scrambling up to the start, he pulled out the guidebook and read me the description, explaining that there may be some areas where it would be hard to protect. He offered to lead it if I wished. I considered it for a moment, but was feeling good and ready enough to take a shot at it, saying, "If I get sketched, I'll just come back down."

As the guidebook puts it, Carabid would be a good beginner lead if it weren't for run-out sections and as I found, some navigation issues towards the top.

The first part of the climb went well. I placed gear quickly and regularly along the route, making sure that at least every second piece of passive protection was "backed up" by a cam here and there. I recall looking down once and thinking, "this would be a bad climb to fall on," because of how many ledges and blocky things there were that could cause what climbers like to refer to as the "cheese grater effect" (the way that on some lower grade climbs, because of the angle, you tend to tumble down them rather than fall straight down). Immediately following the first voice, another voice in my head said, as if to coach myself into the right space, "but you aren't going to fall on this."

When I was almost to the top of the pitch, I found the difficult part: a bulge which also happens to be the crux, close to the anchors (although I couldn't see the top yet). It was difficult to know whether to go right or left to get past this area. I climbed up to the left first and didn't like what I saw so I went back down and off to the right. I liked what I saw there even less so I decided to try left again.

Meanwhile, this bulge was not protectable (there is nowhere to place gear). I had looked around for any little pocket but the bulgy, cruxxy area was slabby and without any holes or pockets or cracks. The closest place to put in protection below this bulge was about 7-10 feet down: that is where my last nut was- a small nut about the size of my thumbnail which I had placed in the "new" way that John had showed me.

My second time trying to go left up this route, I took quite some time looking at it, trying this way and that. I recall the urge to just commit myself to it and go for it, which I did. When I got about few feet up this bulge, I realized I was stuck: I couldn't find a handhold, I couldn't move up it. At the same time, I realized I couldn't really back down to where I'd been either because of the angle of the slope; I definitely *was* committed to this move. All of this mental processing took place within a couple of seconds: "Crap- I can't go up OR down."

And then I felt myself losing my ability to hold onto the bulge, being slightly overhung. I felt myself peel away from the rock.

As loud as I could, I yelled, "Falling!"

I don't remember if I screamed after that, but I'm guessing I didn't. Probably because of the slightly overhung quality to this bulge, I inverted, flipping over and falling head first. That was the worst part: not being able to see what was coming as I fell. Because I was left of the rope trail, as I was falling, I was swinging right like a pendulum. I remember my left elbow and arm hitting something on the way down but I honestly don't remember if I felt any pain; I just remember registering that I'd hit something and then my thinking, "okay, what next? when will the pro catch?" I continued to fall for what seemed like several more seconds.

Finally, I felt a significant jolt when the rope caught and my back and head hit the wall; I was still upside down.

(My nut had caught me, only I didn't realize it yet. I actually hadn't even remembered what the last piece of pro was that I had placed- I thought maybe it had been a cam. But I would find out later that, in fact, my entire bodyweight, on what was about a 25-30 foot fall, was held by this little tiny nut. I have wondered many times if John had not showed me this other way to place nuts if that little nut would have held. Regardless, I am deeply thankful that the little nut held. The next piece of pro was another 7 feet below or more.)

John hollered up to me, "Are you okay, Tamara?!"

I checked myself out and saw my disfigured left elbow, bulging out in a sickening way.

"I broke my arm!" I shouted down.

"Can you turn yourself right side up and I'll lower you down?"

Slowly- and I don't remember how I did it entirely- I got right side up again and he slowly lowered me down to the start of the climb.

I had taken mountaineering first aid the previous spring and interestingly enough, was "with it" enough mentally to know what to do as the patient. I sat down immediately and leaned against the rock. Within a minute or two, I felt hot and cold chills filling my body and the world started spinning.

"I'm going into shock- you'd better cover me up or something," I said to John.

Within a few minutes, several guys arrived at the base of the climb. They had been climbing near me and had seen my fall. They introduced themselves as Wilderness First Responders and started asking me questions. I noted that they never checked me for head or back injuries but I was fairly certain and reassuring to them that I was fine in that regard- although in hindsight, they really should have insisted that I be checked over. One of them began to splint and swathe my arm with my clothing and climbing slings while John and one of the others tried to decide what to do next.

As I sat there with my back leaning up against the rock, trying to process what had just happened, an understanding came into my head, more or less in the form of a voice:

"You need to relax now and breathe deeply. Stay relaxed. The pain will be more bearable if you can relax. Just let these guys take care of everything, take care of you. Your job now is to relax and breathe."

With single focus and every ounce of courage I could muster, I willed myself calm. I continued to talk to myself and remind myself to breathe and relax, focusing only on that and not paying attention to anything the guys around me were doing.

I had honestly always wondered how I would handle a medical emergency or trauma, should anything ever happen to me. Would I be one of those screaming patients, freaking out and panicking? When I'd taken mountaineering first aid, I certainly felt like I was going to faint several times just *hearing* about and imagining particular injuries. In fact, a classmate of mine told me once that I looked so green during some of the lectures that he hoped nothing bad would ever happen on any future climbs I would go on.

But here I was, breathing deeply, only speaking to answer questions, just focusing all my energy and attention on staying calm and keeping my arm still. Something in me took charge and coached myself through the next few hours.

Since the start of the climb was 30-50 feet above the actual trail, up on a ledge, I would either have to scramble down (without hesitation, said no to that), they would have to carry me down the ledge (another definite no- was not going to risk getting more hurt or dropped) or they could build an anchor and lower me down off the ledge: yes, that was the option of choice. In hindsight, had I been the giver of first aid, I would have rappelled down alongside the victim to make sure they got down okay.

So I was lowered down off the ledge, asking several times for them to go more slowly, as I kept getting jostled by bumps, rocks and bushes I would have to navigate past- and every jostle sent a wave of pain throughout my arm and body.

When I finally reached the trail, there was a 4x4 waiting for me. I opted to walk a little further before getting on since the trail at that spot was uneven and I didn't want to risk falling off the thing. Then I rode the 4x4 through the park, back to the base of the hill, across the footbridge, slowly, being partially held onto the four-wheeler by the class organizer, Jill, who had arrived at the base of Carabid when she received the cell phone call from John- a call I don't remember being made.

Burned into my head is the memory of looking up at the rocks as I rode out, telling myself that my elbow had only been dislocated and wondering out loud if someone could just pop it back into place. This is where being in serious denial is a true blessing in an accident: had I known the true state my elbow was in or what I would face in years to come, I would not have been able to stay calm.

After the 4x4, I was driven up the dirt road up to the parking lot. In my "stay calm" state, I was carrying on a conversation with the driver of this park service truck that was wheeling me up this dirt road full of boulders and struggling to make it uphill. "So, if my arm is dislocated, how long do you think it will be before I can climb again? Will I miss the class next weekend?" He laughed.

I refused the ambulance waiting in the parking lot, not knowing if my insurance would cover it, and asked Jill to drive me to the hospital in Redmond. Heck, it was only a 10 minute drive and I didn't think the extra 10 minutes of being on morphine (the only real advantage to the ambulance) was worth whatever I would have to pay out of pocket.

The primary pain I was feeling was from the intense cramps going up my arm. I didn't understand the pain at the time, but in hindsight, since I had not simply dislocated my elbow as I had thought, but had fractured the ulna, radius, olecranon and had torn off all of the ligaments, the muscles were cramping because, with still being attached to the bones which were going every which way, they were all out of whack, likely being stretched and pulled in strange directions.

Getting in and out of the car was surprisingly painful. I had to suck in big deep breaths and move like a 90 year old granny. Once I got out of the car, there was a wheelchair waiting and I was whisked inside the Redmond Medical Center where they got me started on filling out paperwork.

"You've got to be kidding," I thought.

Still thinking my elbow was simply dislocated (oh, that denial!), and having learned in first aid how important it is to reduce a dislocation (put it back in joint) as soon as possible after the injury or risk further damage, I recall asserting myself with the nurses and staff, saying something to the effect of,

"Look, I think my arm is dislocated here and it needs to be put back in joint as soon as possible- can we just skip the paperwork and get to it?"

But of course, everyone but me could plainly see that there was more going on with this arm than a dislocation.

"We'll need to get some x-rays before we can do anything," I was told.

I was taken into the back, into a curtained-off room where the process began of getting x-rays. We found out with those x-rays that I was less than an inch away from having an open fracture- where the bone punctures the skin from the inside out. Those kinds of fractures are dangerous: one can die quickly from infection.

So, thus began the experience of The First Surgery.... starting off with my Redmond Medical Center extravaganza...

Climb On

Maybe it wasn't the best way to approach it, but my first trip back to Smith Rock since the accident was also the first time I really attempted climbing again.

The morning of the first two days of climbing, Saturday, as I waited in the parking lot for my group and instructor to gather, the rumbles of anxiety in my gut started spreading from butterflies in my tummy to an electric buzz in my head; I was starting to feel rattled just seeing everyone else suiting up and gathering ropes.

I began to think that maybe I wouldn't even tie-in that weekend; perhaps I should just observe.

I comforted and coached myself internally: "Tamara, you don't have to do anything you don't want to. You don't have to explain or justify anything. You don't even have to put on your harness if you don't want to. Only you understand everything you're feeling and everything you've been through, so don't worry about what anyone else thinks..."

As our group started down the path into the park, the instructor began asking me about my accident. In trying to relate to me, he began to talk about climbing falls in general and the kind of head spaces people are often in when they fall.

"How were you feeling when you fell?" he asked me.

The dreaded question. I understand why people ask it but I honestly resent that question.

In previous rock climbing classes, I'd heard many a lecture on overcoming fear; I'd heard so much about "just breathe and smile," about how to not let your head get the best of you.

But I find that mindset painfully simplistic for a situation that can be very complex. And for having gone through all that I have, for someone to ask how I was feeling- well, aside from it slightly implying that I fell because I was afraid I was going to fall or that I fell because I wasn't thinking about the right things at the right moment (in a sense, it was my fault), it's a minimizing (and somewhat insulting) question that doesn't take into account the entirety of a situation or the three-dimensional nature of a person.

But I answered his question truthfully.

"I was actually feeling pretty good. I'd had a really great day up until that point and was leading strongly. I was feeling like challenging myself. I remember thinking that this would be a bad climb to fall on because of all the blocky ledges everywhere, but otherwise, I felt pretty strong."

No, I hadn't been freaking out or panicking or looking down a lot or thinking I was going to fall.

If I did anything wrong just before I fell, it was in being over-confident and taking for granted the fact that I was on lead, was a beginner at placing gear, and that I was on a run-out route which was difficult to protect in places.

However, just hours previous to my fall, I'd told my instructor that day that I wasn't interested in pushing my climbing skills, I simply wanted to improve my skills at placing gear. He asked why.

"Because I don't want to fall."
"Have you ever fallen before?"
"No."
"Then why be afraid of it?"

Strange logic, yes.

I had never been interested in taking unnecessary risks, in falling on lead. I'd been extremely careful for the entire class, backing off of things when I felt doubtful. So it was poignantly ironic that I did end up falling in a moment of feeling strong and that I ended up paying a pretty big price for it.

And lord knows, I have been analyzing and overanalyzing my fall since the day it happened. So for someone to ask me, "how were you feeling right before you fell?" as if perhaps it had never occurred to me, makes me roll my eyes. I've tortured myself relentlessly about that moment of judgment- and all the moments leading up to it.

I've tortured myself about the fact that only hours previous to my fall, I was expressing a need to be careful (was it a premonition?). I've anguished over the fact that I felt like that concern was being minimized by my instructor (what if he'd not minimized it? would I have done anything differently?). And then after his consistent encouragement all morning I started to feel strong and confident. And then that afternoon, I fell. That strange reversal has haunted me quite a bit.

So, for someone who's never had a serious fall, for someone who's never had to grapple with the fact that they may never climb or kayak or have the active life they live for again *because* of a fall (and the arduous PT and rehab and three surgeries, and...), it's all too easy to simplify an accident as being due to the wrong head space.

And I don't blame the guy for asking but there was a voice inside of me that was whispering, "You have no idea. How can you ask me that?"

So that was how the first day of climbing began.

However, perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing. His questions put me a little on the defensive regarding all I'd been through, and it caused me to realize again that there was really no way I could ever explain it to someone; therefore, I had no reason to adjust my climbing or lack of it according to what anyone else had to say. If I couldn't bear the thought of putting on a harness that day, so be it.

So for the rest of the day, I didn't feel guilty saying no.

For once, I didn't push myself.

I didn't tough it out, I didn't feel much need to explain, I didn't care what anyone thought. I refused to scramble up a low 5th class ledge without a rope. I took my own sweet time on my first rappel (and then found that the carabiner the rope was through had been left unlocked). I climbed only half way up a 5.7 sport route then asked to be lowered down when the waves of anxiety were protesting loudly. I respected myself, I respected my fear, I honored the fact that these first steps were going to be the hardest. "For christ's sake, Tamara," I thought, "you need to be patient with yourself."

I needed to be as compassionate and caring for myself as I would be with a scared child needing comfort and reassurance.

Interestingly, the following climbing day, I worked with an instructor who asked me nothing about my accident or my mindset but only said, "You just do whatever you feel comfortable doing today. There's no pressure. If you want to take a walk, fine. If you don't want to climb at all, fine." So not surprisingly, I climbed two routes that day. I still only made it half way up a 5.7 sport but this time, I was first in line in our group to jump on it. I was feeling ready to process this whole ordeal. And I was still able to back off the climb when the anxiety voices became significantly louder than the compassionate voices.

I found that what really got to me was the height. It wasn't so much just being on rock again. The higher up I got, the louder the protesting in my gut. This probably doesn't sound surprising, but I had honestly expected that just being face to face with rock, to begin with, was going to be an issue. But that part wasn't too bad. So after that sport climb on the second day, the one I just jumped right on first thing in the morning, I gave myself a few hours to decompress and volunteered to be a belayer.

While doing so, a guy from the class I was taking when I fell showed up to help out. He was surprised to see me and with delight in his voice he said, "Wow, it is *so* good to see you back on the rock, Tamara."

His comment surprised me in a curious way: I hadn't put myself in someone else's shoes, looking at me from the outside. It hadn't occurred to me that others would be surprised to see me out there. Throughout the months, as I started doing mountaineering again (not so much pure rock), I did receive comments like, "It's great that you're not letting this get you down- some people would just stop climbing entirely, rock or snow. Some people would just quit."

But the idea of willingly giving up on climbing without a fight was so far-fetched to me, for the kind of person I am, that it was an interesting perspective shift to stop and consider that others would have understood if I'd decided to do that. It was still a little difficult- though not impossible- for me to get my head around the idea that others were proud of me for being out there that day. From the view inside my heart and head, it wasn't a matter of "if"; it was a matter of "when." It was simply something that had to be done.

Soon after my accident, there was a fleeting moment where it had crossed my mind that maybe I would (peacefully) decide to never climb again, even if I was able to. After all, at first diagnosis, I was told that I'd never be able to flex or extend my elbow more than a range of 90 degrees, losing about 60-70 degrees. However, as I started to recover and as it became clear that I was going to surpass that expectation by a long shot, I knew I would have to at least top-rope again. Sure, maybe I'd never have "the head" to lead rock again but if it was in my heart to climb again, I'd find a way to do it.

(I'm incurably stubborn.)

And I knew all of this not because I have some sort of ego wrapped up in it or because I'm some sort of bad-ass or because I just "can't learn my lesson the first time." I knew that I'd have to eventually get back on the horse because I simply can't live in the shadow of something. I didn't want anything to have that kind of power over me. If I was going to stop rock climbing, I wanted it to be because I simply just (casually) decided I was done (irrespective of my fall) and not from being haunted by a past trauma.

So in my mind, of course I was back! Of course I'd have to return to take back a little bit of my power and get out from under the shadow of this whole ordeal.

Later that afternoon, I decided to do one more climb to see if I could make it to the top this time. It was a blocky 5.5 sport route which I had actually led the day I fell- but here I was following it, glad that it was easy climbing (and glad to be on a tight belay from above) because just getting up that high produced enough anxiety on its own.

As I set up my rappel to come back down, I felt a sense of relief mixed with pride. I hollered down at a friend to get a picture of me on rappel to document the fact that "Tamara is back."

I held out my left arm to wave at the camera, reminding myself to not take my right hand off the rope in my state of celebration.

It was good to be back.

Scary, but good.

Returning to the Scene of the Accident: Rising from the Ashes, Resurrecting Life From Loss

Returning to Smith Rock State Park for the first time since my climbing accident there was an event I had been anticipating and had been imagining in my mind over and over for the majority of a year.

(<--That's a picture of Carabid, the route I fell on. About half way up the spire is the top of the climb. I fell right before that.)

Some friends and I had driven down a day early, before our climbing class, and they went for a day hike while I ventured out on my own. There was some playful teasing in the parking lot beforehand about me bringing dynamite with me and showing that route just who was boss.

"We'll know that you've found Carabid when we hear the explosions."

"Carabid? Oh that route was blown up years ago by Tamara Turner.... "

The laughing and jokes were a welcome relief from the building nervousness inside of me- nervousness at the thought of finally being back, facing this place again. I had anticipated that it would be emotional and powerful but I didn't know exactly how I would react once I got to the base of the climb again, this time alone, in silence.

Every time I had imagined it in my head, tears would come.

I would mentally relive the whole ordeal: getting up onto the crux, realizing I had committed myself to the move because I couldn't back down, realizing I was not going to make the move and I was going to fall, the fall itself, flipping over backwards, hitting my elbow, the rope finally catching and the hours afterwards of shock, rescue, the hospital, the emergency surgery....

So after almost 11 months of anticipation, here I was- finally.

It took me a little longer than I anticipated to find the start of the climb. The start is tucked up above some ledges which require a bit of scrambling. I'd been wandering around the general area looking for the right place and kept seeing this lone Canadian goose sitting atop a ledge. It caught my eye several times. Too lazy to pull out my guidebook, I decided to go investigate the goose and sure enough, he was sitting right at the base of the route where we had dropped our packs and anchored.

Goose marks the spot.

Because it had already started to snow by that point, I decided not to risk scrambling up the wet rock to the base of the climb and stayed down below the ledge where I could still see the route. And the goose.

When I got there, I threw down my pack, pulled out my stick of sage and eventually got it to burn despite the wind and snow. I let the smoke of the sage wash over me (a Native American purification tradition I had been taught years and years ago).

After all this time, now it was just me and the rock.

Feeling somewhat empty at first, waiting for the emotion to hit me, I noticed I was almost holding my breath to see what would happen inside. I took some pictures of the route, even a couple videos. I took some self-portraits of myself with the rock in the background.

Then I sat down, staring out at the river with the climb at my back and recalled an email I had received from my mother that morning, encouraging me about my trip back to this place.

She had reminded me that I come from a lineage of incredibly strong women and that to her, I was like a phoenix rising from the ashes of this whole ordeal. She went on to tell me how proud she was of me but the words about the phoenix had lodged in my head.

Then suddenly, as if a light had just switched on, the realization flooded me that the name of the area where I had fallen is called the Phoenix Wall. The symbolism of that hit me in that moment and emotion rushed over me. Chills went up my spine. Tears came rushing in. I couldn't believe that it had never occurred to me before- the metaphor. After the many times I'd answered questions of where I had fallen, "The Phoenix Wall..." it had never clicked in my head how symbolic this was, considering all I'd had to overcome since then.

That was the moment I felt a mysterious and beautiful purpose to all of this. Something bigger than myself was in motion here.

Now, I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily a superstitious person but it is these sorts of moments in life that confirm for me that there is much more going on in our lives than meets the eye. It is these types of moments that make me continue to want to listen carefully and intently to the ways life whispers wisdom to us, whether through other people, animals, "coincidences" or whatnot. These are the sorts of moments that drive my own personal spirituality.

The moment I made the "phoenix" connection was the single most powerful moment of the experience being back there. From that moment forward, I felt a kind of peace and acceptance I'd longed for and had not yet felt. It was almost as if everything in my life was unfolding the way it was meant to. How much more encouragement could I possibly feel from the situation than to realize that I had fallen on Phoenix Wall- and I had succeeded at being a "phoenix"? Being a person who looks for and appreciates multiple levels of meaning and existence in life, this was inexpressibly heartening.

The moment that the phoenix symbolism hit me was the perfect timing. It registered just when I needed it most: within moments of being back. I could not have really fully appreciated it before that moment.

"You have risen from the ashes of this event.... "

I spent about 2 hours at the base of the climb, mostly just sitting there looking up at it, studying the route, trying to decide where exactly I fell, what I possibly hit on the way down, where I came to rest about half way up the pitch. Then I studied the ledge which I was lowered off after the fall and in one of the cracks of that ledge, I tucked a piece of crumpled-up paper.

On that piece of paper I had written the word "Loss" on one side and "Gratitude" on the other. I had so much to be thankful for and yet, had so much I had to grieve. It was necessary to embrace both.

A phoenix really isn't a phoenix without the destruction part. That's the beauty of it. There's a death/destruction of some kind. And then, there's the rebirth/resurrection. Both parts need to be there. So in making peace with the Phoenix Wall, with Smith Rock State Park, it was only appropriate that both elements be present in my process. Both Loss and Gratitude. Death and Rebirth.

Already blown away by the symbolism of having fallen on Phoenix Wall, having risen from some pretty overwhelming ashes, I decided to look into the meaning of the word "Carabid" when I got home. I didn't think my jaw could drop any further than it already had, but it did.

Carabid is the name for a type of beetle.

In Native American spirituality, as well as other traditions (such as Egyptian mythology), the beetle has tremendous significance. Because it rolls balls of dung and lays its eggs inside, it has long been associated with new life and turning "shit" into something useful. In addition to that, the beetle is a symbol of resurrection because of its dynamic metamorphosis from the grub stage to the winged stage.

The parallels just keep getting more intense...

Just weeks previous to me revisiting Smith Rock, but completely unrelated to it, my sister had sent me an email about the symbolic meaning of the beetle. And on top of that, my mother had been to Egypt in the recent past and had bought me a beetle bracelet, after having seen the beetle symbolism all over the Pyramids.

As I sat at the base of the climb that day, along with writing Loss and Gratitude on a piece of paper, I had taken another piece of paper and had written all sorts of other words on it that had meaning to me. Resurrection and Transformation kept landing on the page. This was before I learned the meaning of the word "Carabid."

So, I'll say it again: for something so unfortunate to have happened in my life, I am beginning to think that there is something bigger at work here- maybe even something quite beautiful unfolding. Considering where I've been, the emotional and spiritual and mental territory I have braved since my fall, I could not feel more cradled and cared for by life, the universe- whatever you want to call it- than I do since making these connections.

In my mind's eye, returning to Carabid had always been a kind of agonizing experience. When I would play it out in my mind, intense regret and sadness would come up. There was a lot of angst over it.

But being back there, although emotional, was actually incredibly freeing and releasing. I didn't feel angsty. Tears definitely came flooding over me, remembering the experience. But there was a feeling of acceptance emerging inside of me that I hadn't expected. They weren't hot tears anymore- they were cool tears. Tears of acceptance rather than tears of regret.

And although I would take back that fall, undo it if I possibly could, opt for not having had that experience if I had the choice, I feel a growing sensation inside that everything in my life is unfolding as it should- or at least as best and as beautifully as it possibly can.

Not only am I now a phoenix woman on Phoenix Wall who has risen from the ashes, but I am a winged dung beetle on Carabid who turned a big ball of poop into something promising, something hopeful, something transformative.

Balancing Both Loss and Gratitude: When Having Courage Means Surrendering

As I was packing to leave for my trip down to Smith Rock, my first trip there since my accident, a dear friend mine dropped by unexpectedly.

She told me that she had been thinking about me, about this trip, and all that would be going on inside my head and heart.

"So I wanted to give you this...," she said as she placed a small piece of metal into the palm of my hand and closed my fingers around it.

I opened my hand and studied this smooth, rock-like nugget in my hand.

Etched into the nugget was the word "Loss"

She explained that she knew I had spent so much of this last year mustering courage, being strong, fighting the odds. And yet, she wanted to remind me that it was important for me to just accept the pain of the loss I've had- that it is okay to just feel that loss and accept it, surrender to it.

What an incredible gift this was.

Though I have so much to be grateful for- grateful that my head, back, neck and life were spared, grateful that I came out of that accident as well as I did (all things considered), grateful for superb medical care and rehab, I really haven't given myself that much time to just feel the loss, to let the feelings surface and flood my body. I've only begun to let myself grieve.

And in order to fully release this experience, in order to really make peace with this place, I do, in fact, need to just accept the loss that I have experienced. I can't fight it. I can't push it away with courage and strength and determination. All of those qualities are wonderful but there is a certain point when you just have to let yourself experience the pain in your heart.

You have to breathe it in.

Loss.

It is a scary thing to totally embrace it. I don't really want to feel the helplessness or victimization feelings that come with that. Admitting to and feeling all of the loss I've had in the last year or so (physical, emotional) leaves me feeling vulnerable; it reminds me how fragile life truly is and how little control we have over so much of it.

But there is no escaping it. I can't- and shouldn't- try and mask that helpless, vulnerable feeling by powering through it.

Perhaps, I decided, it is more brave to admit vulnerability and loss than to rail against it with determination.

So as I was sitting at the base of Carabid, the climb I fell on, for the very first time since the accident, one of the things I did to make peace was to write the words, "Gratitude" and "Loss" on opposite sides of a piece of paper. Focusing on all I had to be grateful for as well as accepting all I had lost, I crumpled this piece of paper and tucked it into a crack at the base of the climb.

*******************************

PS: After having written this post, I learned later that the same morning I was at Smith Rock for the first time since my accident, writing the words Loss and Gratitude on that piece of paper, my mother had seen a rock in a store with the word, "Gratitude" on it and bought if for me with this particular trip back to Smith in mind. It was a word that had just come into my mind that morning as I'd been thinking about how to balance the feelings of loss. This "coincidence" definitely made me pause in awe about the kind of wavelength she and I share.

Anticipating A Reunion

Today, I am going to Smith Rock for the weekend with a climbing class. It will be the first time I've been back there since my accident. I'm going down a day early to have some "alone time" so that I can begin to make peace with myself and the place.

The last time I was there, I was being evacuated/rescued from my fall. I remember looking around the park as I was being hauled out, looking up at the rocks, still quite in shock and disbelief. My last impressions of the place were of pain, disbelief, and a slow-motion. surreal fog.

My plan is to walk to the base of the climb where I fell, sit there and see what happens inside of me.

I joked with some friends last night that maybe I would kick the rocks a few times.

"Take that!"

And wouldn't it be funny if I then ended up breaking my toe and coming out of there with a toe splint.

No, I don't think I'll be kicking anything.

It's peace I want.


In thinking about all of this, these words came into my head the other day and evoked some strong emotion, which I will try to remember this weekend....

"Tamara, you have suffered enough.... "

In my head and heart, I will be holding these words and feelings of compassion, of self-forgiveness, of peace.

It is time to let go.