Xiaoping Li

Today, after climbing at Kelso, I sat in my car in the parking lot to log the routes I had lead with traditional gear in the climbing guide book that lists the climbing routes in Ontario.  Thirteen years ago, I met a gay climber through the Crag Crux Climbers group I had started in the gay community in Toronto.  He told me that I should log all the routes I had climbed, so that I would be qualified to take a training course to become an outdoor climbing instructor, in case I would decide to do so.

As I turned the pages of my guide book, I saw that I had climbed the same routes I did today thirteen and eleven years ago.  And I saw the names of the people who had belayed and seconded me.  Most of them were the gay climbers I met through Crag Crux Climbers. 

I remembered one beautiful morning, when I hiked with one of them in the woods towards the cliff, he told me that he had recently being diagnosed HIV positive.  He told me so that I would be careful as in climbing, we sometimes got our skins scraped and could be exposed to possible contact with each other’s blood.  I felt sad and moved in the same time.  He was gorgeous looking and what he said to me allowed me to see his beautiful mind.  I kept climbing with him there afterwards.  But his physical condition wouldn’t allow him to climb vigorously.  He initiated to organize social events for the group, which I wasn’t keen.  Eventually we drifted apart and lost contact.

Now I can see that I was too focused on the sport itself without giving much attention to the friendship associated with the sport.  I am going to pay more attention to my relationship with my fellow climbers.  Ultimately, it is the friends around us who make our lives more meaningful.