New Life

It’s another crisp blue morning in the town of Flagstaff. Two Dogs bark protectively from across the street warning a passer by not to shit in our neighborhood. In my mind Flagstaff is not a solid place, it is continually changing. As I’ve been getting older, my perception of Flagstaff has been growing too. I’ve been coming up to Flag since I was ten years old. At that time, the town felt so old and rustic. It was a place where one could escape from the desert heat, from sitting through boring Sunday sermons, and from the monotony of everyday life.

I would come up every weekend with friends to climb in the surrounding canyons. This was our training ground for many years. Bouldering in the forest with beers and buds proved to be an excellent way of getting stronger. Flagstaff was a place where we could push our limits, work on projects and achieve incredibly rewarding goals. Although climbing was always our main priority, we felt that it was important to balance the anguish of rock climbing with the relief of Advil and cold beer. This is where the construction and corruption of my character began.

As my friends got older, they began migrating north for college and a new era of Flagstaff emerged. I still came up on weekends to go climbing, but people were becoming harder to motivate. I guess it was half to do with the fact that the climbing was so accessible that you could just go climb any time you wanted, but a new force was also emerging. It came to be known as the “Evil Party Vortex”. It was a strong gravitational pull which had shifted our focus from climbing to boozing. Late nights lead to shorter days. We seldom got out of the house before 1:00. Coffee intake was so extreme that when you finally got out to the rocks, nervous tremors would shake you off the wall. My climbing was going down hill.

I really wanted to move up to join my friends in pursuits of drunken belligerence, yet at the same time I really wanted to travel and rock climb. After I graduated from high school I knew I would be going to NAU, but not right away. I was originally just going to take one year off, but I ended up taking two. I was always searching for the next challenging adventure. During my time off I traveled around Southeast Asia following a climbing circuit. I had never been abroad on my own. Along my journey I picked up small pieces of myself. After traveling and working for two years I was ready to head back to school. At first I went to a community college, but it wasn’t long before I was enrolled at NAU. Now my perception of Flagstaff has changed again. It’s still a town full of adventures and partying, but now it encompasses more for me. I’m really excited about the school of Forestry. The program seems tough and interesting at the same time. As a college student I have new goals. My long-term goals are still to climb and travel, but I have a few things to do before I can begin my new life as a wanderer. Finding a main source of income through the forest service