ANOTHER LEVEL OF FAILURE

The weekend that just passed marked a milestone. There's no turning back from where I am now. Just three weeks after my epic send of OOS Assis, I found myself again trembling under the Amiata roof, with my aim on the direct line. Until now, I really haven't desired to climb this line completely, because of its distance from my ability: just like dreaming about sleeping with Monica Bellucci, something that everyone does, but that noone really embarks into, due to its very low percentage of success.

Well, I don't know if Monica will ever have the pleasure to sleep with me (a mutual pleasure, I'm sure), but as far as the roof goes, I can really take off my underwear now, and prepare to the love.

I didn't do it, but the way I didn't do it really takes me forward to new realms. As The Guru told me the other day at the gym "We have opened a new frontier". Yes, we did it.

As you know, I had done all the moves of the direct some time ago, but the link was something beyond: the crucial first dyno off the poor pinch put a serious chance for falling, every time I decided to have a go. Well, during the last weekend, not only I did the move, but fell twice at the very last move: briefly, with a little luck and more accuracy in chosing the footholds, I could already have sent.

Mindblowing.

Many of you dear riders may remember my infamous video of the other line under the roof, the easier one, with my 30 seconds worth of yelling after the success. That dyno was the trickiest move of the problem, the others being hard but steady; a very low percentage move, I did it 5 times ouf of 6 tries on saturday, and 6 times out of 8 tries on sunday, tired. This is not low percentage anymore. Translated into the past, related to the other problem, it would have been like doing it, let's say, 3 times on saturday and 4 times on sunday: lapping it, that is.

Mindblowing.

I am at a point where all I have to do is to go there and climb the direct. No more sussing the moves, no more trying. Just leaving the ground to complete it, and to put a full stop to a story almost ten years long.

I am sad and happy at the same time. Sad, because I didn't do it, and I wanted it. Happy, because I gave everything to do it, but finally had to give up. I also have to change tactique: the roof goes in the sun in the afternoon, so yesterday I got to try it in the shade only for a few tries, then I had to put rags on the holds to protect them from the sun, but a couple of times I slipped from the bad crimp and it hurt my fingers as hell. I really understood Keith, with hundreds of kilos of pressure on the very same point of your fingers, you really have to be both quick, smart, and lethal.

So now I'm terrified, because I fear to wake up from a dream, to realize that it's been just a lucky weekend that I let pass witout reaping the biggest prize. Am I really capable of climbing at this level? I feel so. Still, to step your game up, to raise the bet, to take bigger responsibilities is very scary, and something that exposes ourselves to frustration and tears. But we have to chase that small light that we saw just for a second. We have to be sure about our desire, about the glance of that girl far away from us. There's nothing else.