bouldering

Far from home

Children play on the rocks with sailboats, the ocean, and container ships visible behind.

In Hong Kong’s winter we sit on rocks next to the ocean and talk to our friends. The breeze is brisk, and we wear jackets in between climbs. The months of shorts and tank tops, of sun screen, hats, and seeking AC feel like a distant memory. These spots, on the rocks near the water, are our hideaways. We found them first during covid, when there were no other places to go, and still they feel that way, refuges from the city.

The children are two, three years old now. Children who were not born when we first found these rocks. Children who were carried down to the boulders in slings, in backpacks, in carriers. Children who napped strapped to us, or tucked into shady spots, now rumble around moving snails industriously from one tidal pool to another. They cut their feet, or slip on the rocks, and keep going. We are building the next generation like this, outdoors on the rocks. Unafraid, at least for now. It’s a great break from airplanes and urban spaces, from rooftops and parks, from restaurants and malls. It’s a great break from the years since covid, where we’ve all gone back to our old lives, to our busyness.

Out here on the rocks we look at the ocean, at the tiny sailboats and the huge container ships, and talk about schools, about moving. The conversations aren’t urgent, because it’s Sunday and the sun is shining, because in the winter Hong Kong is a fantastic place to live, and because we all are, underneath, happy and lucky to be here. The questions about moving, about public schools in Canada or private schools here, are for future parents to solve, for our own future selves.

Those are Monday problems for Monday people.

Teach a body

In the afternoons, after our team is done sprinting, we teach each other head stand technique. We learn to put our hands in a triangle behind our head and push up gracefully. Or we try to learn, waver, and collapse. After a while we move to hand stands until our shoulders are too tired to support our weight against gravity. Exhausted, we lie in the sun on our backs and laugh at each other.

These are the good days of summer. We run together and work on what our bodies can accomplish. In the space of a few months I learn better sprint starts, higher one-legged jumps, and get closer to hand stands. These are good things to practice at any age, let alone turning thirty seven. Together our group pushes each other to new levels of fitness and agility. We go climbing together, swimming together, and mostly, running together. Along the way we practice tricks. Some take up acro yoga and become adept at spinning each other. Some work on dynos at the local gym, practicing power moves until our shoulders and fingers are too sore to grip.

These hours spent training are the gifts of being able to live actively, with leisure time and in good weather. On a Saturday afternoon, biking no hands down Folsom to a baseball game, I think of how lucky we are. All these skills, learned over years that have been punctuated by injuries, are my lasting memory of San Francisco. These abilities gained on beaches and fields are a reminder that we live close to the ocean and in the gentle weather of the west coast. Here, where it is never too hot or too cold to go running, where bicycling is always an option, and where a group of friends will push me further than I would ever have pushed myself.

Coasting along like this I think of climbs I have not mastered and my still-imperfect hand stands, and tell my body we are not done. There are so many tricks we have not learned.

And miles to go before we sleep.