Yesterday was the hottest day since the beginning of this year (if not the hottest day ever in the history of this city). While driving back from work, the highest temperature recorded in the panel at the back of the steering wheel read “38°C.” I sat in the driver’s seat, trying my best to enduring both the unbearable heat and the grueling traffic at the same time, silently cursed all the autocrats in the world. Global warming may not be their making, but not acknowledging it, not facing it, and above all, not dealing it – these are absolutely their faults and crimes.

And now I’m just staying at home and finally starting to write again. Gladly today is not as hot as yesterday. The highest temperature today, according to my phone’s Weather app, is 29°C, instead of yesterday’s 34°C. Tomorrow the temperature is projected to be even lower, so there is hope (?)

Years later, when I’m old and weak (hopefully not, fingers crossed…), when I run into this passage again and lay my foggy eyes on these ancient entries, I’ll see all I had recorded was how hot these days had been. And my then older self will laugh at these words the younger, naive self wrote. She will laugh at how I failed to appreciate and fully enjoy the last cool summer I had in my life.

What a bleak future.

But at least I’ve been reading consistently these days. As you might have guessed, I’ve also been climbing consistently. I’m a little more into bouldering than roped climbing now, which I’m slightly embarrassed to admit, since I always tell people I like to climb bigger walls more. I guess it’s because I’ve finally got the “puzzle-solving” aspect of bouldering, which I for sure like very much. Previously, when I was still a beginner, all my energy was spent on keeping myself on the wall, not falling unexpectedly, and wishing somehow I could send the problem. It turns out if I’m so preoccupied with not falling, I’ll the problem as individual, separated rocks, rather than a holistic puzzle waiting for me to solve by perhaps a holistic approach. Now that my techniques are better and my body becomes stronger, I can actually start tackling the problems as puzzles. I can try different solutions, as in different body positions or movements; I can also execute minute tweaks to optimize my solutions. With this shift, I also realize that I’ve stopped blaming on my being short too. Thanks to the inclusive routes at my gym, there should always be a solution regardless of the climber’s height (or even size). I just need to use some patience to figure out the solution that will work for me.

(Side note: The more I climb at my gym, the more I appreciate the settings there. Despite being challenging and daunting at first, these routes are so height-inclusive that literally most people between 130 to 190 cm can climb on them and send them. This testifies that rock climbing, or at least, indoor rock climbing, is in fact a very accessible sport, with roped climbing being more so than bouldering. I’m glad I’ve finally “aged” into an intermediate climber to begin to appreciate these settings.)