Fellowship of the rope

‘In each of them, we find the amalgam of the child carrying old wounds and the adult who has learned to cope with a world oblivious to his or her individual dream.’
Jennifer Weil, Old Town Playhouse

These are words flung out to a waiting audience by the director of Gene Abravaya’s new play, The Book of Matthew Liebowitz.  Words to secure our ascent up a fictional mountain of contiguous words, astutely drawn characters and a well conditioned ensemble.

And why do we, audience or artist, entertain metaphors of mountaineering, with our own lives already rife with challenge?  Why explore, discern, respond to created worlds?  Charlie Houston, veteran climber, put it this way:

You're surrounded by beauty. No matter whether it's a storm, or a sunny day, or clouds, or not, the mountains are simply beautiful. I've never been a great climber. I'm just a competent climber and I know my limits. But I love getting out and doing it.
Charlie Houston, Bill Moyers Journal

Just ‘getting out and doing it’ for the beauty is impetus behind many a climb, fuel for exhaustive preparation and try.

But there’s more than solo gratification on the line.  Actors, musicians, writers and their audiences - even in the heady free fall of oxygen-lite extroversion - pull themselves together and upwards by means of what Houston, no stranger to death defiance, called a ‘fellowship of the rope.’

You knew that your life was in the hands of somebody else, and his was in your hands. And it made you climb perhaps more carefully. You didn't push the envelope quite so hard. But it also gave you a feeling of... there was an emotional or a psychological bond between us... at least as important as the physical bond. And that's why climbing with rope is... To some extent, it's more dangerous, because if one man pulls, slips and pulls you off, you're both gone. But on the other hand, as happened in our case, the fact that we were roped together saved all our lives.
Charlie Houston, Bill Moyers Journal

I’ve experienced this invisible tensile strength with musical companions, on stage, in studio, at rehearsal; a bond like no other.  Why climb creativity's sheer slopes?  Summoned by beauty, lured by dream, secured by interdependence, we do it in search of home.

I’m reminded of lyrics I wrote once, not yet calling love the rope, but knowing it full well.

Set out to climb impossible mountain.
Could not be done.  I did not care.
Set out to climb impossible mountain. 
I thought I’d find my dreams up there.

Top of the world, you are alluring. 
I can’t deny your mystic slope.
I hear you scream your warning. 
Echo of madness, echo of hope.

Set out to climb impossible mountain. 
I changed my mind, I turned in my tracks.
Set out to climb impossible mountain. 
Love took me home and home took me back.

Susan Weber, Everest

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Photo Felicity and Phillip, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0