aurora-sliding-down-lamppost.jpg My daughter can tear off her shoes and socks, spit on her hands and climb right to the top of a lamp post. Once at the top, she slides joyously down again.

Imagine being half the size of a grownup yet seeing adventure in something as ordinary as a lamp post. Imagine being half the size of your mother yet able to climb far higher than she could ever reach.

I wish I could climb a lamp post.One day I might decide to climb a lamp post.

11 thoughts on “climb

  1. Lars

    See your previous post…

  2. mcb

    I reckon you could climb one if you really wanted to…

  3. Jill

    Uh, yeah… True.

    OK, well, to be honest, I want to climb lamp posts but I don’t really want to put in the effort to learn how to do it and strengthen my arms sufficiently.

    So I guess I choose not to climb lamp posts rather than just “can’t” climb em.

  4. christian

    You are probably able to, but can’t be bothered!

  5. El diabloG

    I dare you to climb a lamp post, let your daugther take a picture, post it and prove to the world you really can do it. You know, a broken foot heals quick but the uncertainty of your climbing skills will stay with you for the rest of your life.

  6. Kevin

    Been there, done that! Be careful while drunk!!!

  7. LarsD

    Itís never to late. Astrid Lindgren loved to climb from she was a little girl till she was an old lady. Iíve seen pictures of Astrid and her sister Stine climbing trees. They seem to having a wonderful time together.

  8. Jill

    But children have this amazing body weight to strength ratio. Another mother told me that she vividly remembers when she lost the strength necessary for climbing trees: she climbed eagerly until she was six or seven, but one day her mother became frightened because the child was so high, so the mother forbad the child to climb in her favourite tree. A couple of months later, the child (now a mother herself) tried to climb the tree again, despite her mother’s interdiction, but she couldn’t. Her arms had lost their strength.

    I hope Aurora never loses hers.

  9. Alex Halavais

    Brava! I am glad for your correction.

    I stopped climbing trees when I finished university. My undergrad institution was situated around a large arboretum, so it was the most natural thing in the world to go up a tree to read or study. At least I thought it was–some others thought it was a little strange. Soon after my future wife and I started dating, I invited her to climb with me into my favorite tree on campus. She thought I was strange too, but I guess she got over it.

    These days, climbing stairs is hard enough. But someday I will climb trees again. And lampposts.

  10. Norman

    Don’t leave it too long. I have a photo of my daughter standing on the end of a projecting rock in Bolivia, with a sheer cliff dropping literally thousands of feet into a canyon. She loved it at the time, but recently her knees went wobbly simply looking at the photo.
    Before I began school, I somehow managed to get up a metal pole carrying the telephone wire through a park, in order to confirm that messages were carried via a weak electric impulse. Sixty odd years on, I’m squeamish even thinking about my obsession with heights [not to mention stupid “experiments”]
    So soar before it’s too late.

  11. GENDER & COMPUTING

    Motivation and encouragement
    I have linked to this blog before: Ass Be Gone: Chronicle of dieting follies by two sisters and I have…

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