Stuck in a moment you can't get out of

A.Rogers Feb.2011

This is a picture that I took at Pioneer Park recently. I do not know who the boy is, but it reminded me of a movie that I went and saw today. My family and I went to see 127 Hours, the story of Aron Ralston, the canyoneer who got his hand stuck when a large house sized boulder came loose and landed on it while he was hiking in the remote and lonely areas of Horseshoe Canyon in Canyonlands. After 6 days, he realized the only chance he had of surviving was to cut off his hand with the nail file in his small multitool.
As soon as I got out of the theater I headed to Barnes and Noble to pick up the book. I have known about this story since it happened back in April 2003, but I was eager to read his whole account of the disaster. Ralston moved to Colorado from the midwest when he was 11 and fell in love with the outdoors. He was a bit reckless and often skirted on the edge of disaster as many boys do. I can see him, in my mind's eye, climbing rocks, like this, and mountains and trying to slide down patches of ice, nearly leading to an avalanche.
My favorite line from the movie went something like this, "This rock has been waiting for me for my whole life. Ever since it was made billions of years ago. Ever since it was only a meteor floating in space. Every step I have taken in my life has led me to this rock." The reason I like this quote so much is because its metaphorical value hit me in the face. We all have our own "rocks" that have been waiting for us since before we were born. Rocks that threaten to pin us to where we are standing and keep us from moving on. In fact, I have allowed some of my own "rocks" to lock me in place for years. This is quite unfortunate. How long will we let these "rocks" hold us back before we realize the only way out of it is to cut ourselves free? That is the hardses thing to do, I believe! As I watched Aron cutting off his own hand, I wondered if I would have been able to do the same thing. I hope I would. I hope that I could tell myself that the pain would be but a brief moment. So, maybe it means we have to cut off our own hand, and when it is all said and done, we may stand there completely awestruck realizing what we just did, looking at that lost limb still pinned there cursing at us for cutting it off and leaving it there by itself, but it is only then that we are free to leave that pain behind us. There is much more life ahead of us that we can enjoy once we get up the courage to let ourselves free. That is my goal after far too many years lost.