No name

My dad bought me a real slackline. It is 120 feet of purple webbing and 5 steel D carabiners. It has a smell that reminds me of a vague memory. It is a memory of being probably around 13 years old.

 I used to admire, respect, and fear the bold, tough climbers. It seemed that each person had no fear of climbing, had a full knowledge of the methods, and was a part of an undefined club. That is what I thought of them.  I don't imagine it was really like that, but I didn't necessarily understand things as they were. I saw through the very thick lens of my preconceived ideas and emotions. 

 When I walked into the basketball gym there was the climbing wall over in the corner. The busy energy and the eagerness of the climbers seemed out of place set in the corner far from the usual location of activity in the gym. I felt excited by the hope that I might experience some of this, and wracked by the fear that I would be accepted. I felt very intimidated.  As I ventured closer I hit a wall of smell. It wasn't bodies or sweat, it was the rope.

That is the complex smell of my slackline.