As I watched the film Free Solo, my stomach grew queasy with each ascent up the face of Yosemite’s El Capitan by rock climber Alex Honnold.  It was clear he was very special; crazy, was a common word to describe his unshakeable determination and daring.  I kept thinking, “Could I even climb an ten feet of that mountain?” “He’s beyond amazing.” “One in a million, but really he is one in the whole world…” That is pretty, bleepin’ remarkable.

El Capitan. The photo is a triumph. Photo Credit Joanie Kibbey

In case you missed it, an Academy award winning documentary introduced the world to Alex Honnold and his passion for climbing impossible mountains of sheer rock, El Capitan his ultimate personal challenge. He practiced climbing the face of that mountain with his ropes and his expert climbers backing him up. He wrote in his notebook about what every inch of the mountain was like to climb, as if choregraphing a dance routine. He cross trained, doing pull ups in his van, by his fingerstips, inserted into different sizes and shapes of cut-outs, resembling the almost non-existent crevices in the smooth granite.  Then he made the climb without a rope, risking his life if he fell.

Nobody is like him.

But then, there was one line in the movie that got me, made me think I actually had something in common with Alex Honnold, the greatest free solo climber in the world. The first time he thought he was ready to free solo El Capitan, cameramen at the ready, he stopped part way up. He didn’t feel right. Some thought, finally, he dropped his insane dream. But that’s not the answer he gave. Instead, to paraphrase, he said, “I’ve been planning this climb for seven years…I can’t throw it all away…”

I know that aching feeling.

Writing Alive and Fixable, my memoir, became my obsession for years, the last three the most intense. Often, I wondered if I could really do it and does it really matter. Can I possibly get anything from one more class or one more editor? Nobody would fault me if I gave up. But I didn’t.

Then I thought, all of us have an ultimate dream, a parallel to El Capitan. Our goals may not be as harrowing as climbing El Capitan, but it’s big to us. For my mom, seeing Ireland, her roots, was more important to her than any other place on the planet. She got there, but not until late in life. She never went anywhere else outside of America.

For me, it was finally finishing Alive And Fixable. When I saw my manuscript, with a cover, I was relieved, as if I got to the top of El Capitan, free solo. I was exhausted, spent. I couldn’t write another thing—my creative tank, empty.

And I was free. This looming goal was achieved and I felt lighter. I had reached the top. And to quote Alex Honnold at the end of his epic climb:

I was delighted.