Creative agency Duct Tape Then Beer selected my personal essay to be produced as a podcast episode on the Dirtbag Diaries, which Outside Magazine calls, "the OG of outdoor-storytelling podcasts." I collaborated with the agency to edit the essay and record myself reading it. The piece, titled Beyond Failure, is about a rock climbing experience that taught me how the consequences of failure can be much larger than individual defeat.

You can listen to the episode here or read the essay below.

Before that day on the cliffs above the river, failure was always personal. There was the time I trained for a year, but still lost the mountain bike race. The time I applied to all those dream jobs but never heard back. The time I was too scared to ski the chute and waited until everyone else flew past before I took the easier way down and hoped they didn’t see. All those times, failure had been about individual defeat.

When I started climbing, failure seemed just as personal: you’re not always going to make it up that pitch. And for my first year of climbing, that’s how it went. While in Rumney the morning after a storm, I only made it halfway up a soggy face before crying out for my belayer to lower me. But on a cliff above Railay Beach, I fought the voice in my head that whispered, “you’re not strong enough to climb this,” until I balanced on a stalactite and clipped the anchors. That first year, I saw the possibility that I would fail as just another challenge that came with climbing.  

———————

It was late September in Washington, DC and my boyfriend, Raja, was scheduled to visit me from New York. Our relationship was long bus commutes and dreaming up the next weekend together. He was the one who introduced me to climbing, tying my figure-eight at a gym in the city. Eager to impress him, I planned a day at Great Falls, a local DC crag in a gorge with easy top rope climbing.

It rained the entire week before we showed up at Great Falls. The routes normally had a sandy base along a river, but the constant downpour had flooded the bottom of the climbs with ten feet of fast-moving whitewater. My first instinct was to back out. But as I watched other climbers pace up and down the trails, rope coils slung untouched over their backpacks, asking us if we had seen any dry bases, I wanted Raja and I to be the ones who figured out a way to climb. 

“We can make this work,” I told Raja. He raised his eyebrows—he knew I hadn’t done this before—but he nodded. He trusted me. Or at least he believed in trying. We found a tree 15 feet from the edge to use as an anchor. Under the oak leaves, we set-up a top belay. With one bar of cell service, we downloaded videos to double check what we had set-up. When we had triple checked everything, I chalked up.

Raja lowered me down the climb. The rock was slick with humidity and the smell of moss and lichen rushed through my nose. I looked across the river. The jagged rocks churned out whitewater. The current propelled fallen trees downstream. Rapids echoed against the rocks. 

Since 2001, over thirty people had died in this river. I imagined falling into the swirling waves and getting dragged under until I lost consciousness. I shook the thought from my head and yelled up to Raja that I had reached the bottom of the route. He didn’t hear me at first, but I yelled louder, and this time I felt the rope tighten. If I stretched, my toes could touch the river's surface. I smiled as I hovered inches above the water. I let myself levitate for a moment. Then I climbed.           

As I grabbed the final holds, Raja peered over the lip, his end of the rope extended from our anchor to the edge of the cliff. His cheeks swelled into a grin. It was his turn to climb.

Back at the anchor, I slipped on fingerless gloves and set-up a belay. Across the river, the sun’s morning rays lit up the cliffs. After Raja tied in, we ran through the safety checks. 

When Raja was ready for me to lower him, I lifted the Grigri’s lever, disengaging the device’s locking system, so he could walk the fifteen feet from our anchor to the cliff’s edge. As he walked faster, I pulled the lever all the way back so the rope could easily glide through the device to match his speed. Then, he stepped over the edge.  

In an instant, gravity yanked Raja down. It happened so fast, I didn’t react quickly enough to soften my left hand’s hard press against the Grigri’s lever. The rope careened through the belay device and my grip. It raced until it burned my fingertips. The pain felt sudden and sharp. Instinctively, I let go of the rope. The burning immediately quelled. 

But in my panic, I forgot to close the open lever with my other hand. In that moment, I didn’t think about Raja on the other end of the rope. 

The rope flew through the Grigri with a quiet swoosh and then it was still. I froze. I stared at my stinging fingers, the dangling brake strand, and my clenched left hand on the lifted lever. For a moment, everything was silent. 

I’ve always been taught to embrace failure. Failure is how we grow, I was told. When you’re learning, when you’re facing new challenges, sometimes you fail. That’s ok—until it’s not. Until the consequences of your failure are someone else’s life.

Forty feet below me, Raja plunged beneath the water. I didn’t hear the splash. Its sound dissolved into the tumbling current. But as I imagined Raja crashing into the river, I knew the splash must have been loud.

I should have raced to the edge of the cliff and shouted his name, but I didn’t. I stood there motionless, paralyzed with shame. I didn’t want this. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.

“You have to move,” I told myself. I shuddered. I held my breath and tiptoed to the ledge. The sunlight caught the tips of rapids and the river shimmered. I forced my eyes down. 

Raja clung to the wall. His clothes drenched and droplets cascading off his arms, he looked up at me and shook his head.

Everything was fine. He was wet—nothing more. But if there had been rocks below the surface, it wouldn’t have been fine. And if our cliff hadn’t been in a protected corner, Raja could have been swept into rapids.  

When Raja made it back up the wall, he collapsed on the rock. His soaked clothes stained the granite. I huddled a few feet away from him, scared to get too close. Remorse pulsed through me. A warm breeze floated through the gorge, but I shivered.

“Should I stop?” I asked, more to myself than to him. I don’t have to climb, I thought. Then I would never have to feel this way again.   

“Hey,” Raja said. “I forgive you.” He glanced up at me. His voice was soft. “You don’t need to give this up.” 

I watched a falcon circle over the rapids. I wanted with all my heart to hear him say that. But at the same time, I wanted with all my heart to never touch a rope again. It’d be so much easier that way. I could collapse in a pile of guilt and self-loathing and fear and never have to endure failure again. Never have to risk someone else’s life. That plan was simple. The other option would be a lot harder.

I knew that if I were to keep climbing, it couldn’t be with the same ignorance. If I were to keep going, I would have to do all that I could to make sure that I never again failed the life on the other end of my rope. But if I stopped, I would always wonder if I could have found the strength and the humility to become better. To do things right. To rise above this failure. 

“Alright,” I said, turning back to Raja. “I won’t give up.” 

I wish I could tell you that I felt brave and hopeful when I said that, but I’ve learned that choosing resilience doesn’t always mean you shake the fear that tries to hold you back.

Now when I put my hands on rock, I fear failure more than before. I fear that my mistakes won’t just hurt me, but someone else. I fear the responsibility that I take on each time I reach for a belay device. I fear not being perfect in a sport where imperfection risks lives. I don’t think the “what-ifs” from that accident will ever stop running through my head.

Now when I hold Raja’s life in my hands, I feel an even deeper responsibility not to fail. That terrifies me. But it also pushes me to face that fear. To ask myself “why” and “how” I made that mistake and to figure out how I’ll never repeat that error again. Having to shoulder failure’s burden has made me study harder, practice more often, ask questions even when I think I have it all figured out, and learn to back out when I’ve gotten myself in too deep. 

And it’s always going to be this way. Even when I’m scared and tired, I’m going to have to keep learning so I can hold up my end of the bargain when I say, “on belay.” So I can continue upwards. So I can keep feeling what it’s like to float above rivers. 

That day on the cliffs above the river taught me that when failure kicks you to the floor, you have two options: stay there or get back up with your bruises and put in the work to stay standing. I only know that the views are better from higher up.