{"id":753,"date":"2013-04-02T21:11:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T21:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?page_id=753"},"modified":"2017-07-23T05:25:32","modified_gmt":"2017-07-23T05:25:32","slug":"sheepstor","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?page_id=753","title":{"rendered":"Sheepstor."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"sheps<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A beginning of sorts.
\nA new life, new friends, new hope,
\nmainly of being someone,
\nother, someone else.
\nSo, what did you offer me?
\nIll-equipped, ill-sorted,
\nyet keen, naive keen.<\/p>\n

The day was all wrong,
\nof course. Coarse drizzle,
\nthe Dartmoor speciality.
\nPlymouth weather.
\nIt insinuated itself
\nthrough every opportunity
\nmy inadequate gear offered.<\/p>\n

Then there was the rock.
\nshort, brutish, terrifying.
\nBlack, sharp, rough.
\nI had not thought to actually climb,
\njust to be there,
\nto catch some reflected glory.<\/p>\n

But, not entirely ready,
\n(and I\u2019m still not,)
\nI was tied on, and hauled up.
\nSlab route.
\nThen I watched the others
\ntry, some were as bad as me.
\nOthers fought a bit harder.<\/p>\n

Cuts, bruises, but above all,
\nsearing damp.
\nFor what?
\nTo edge up a short rock-face,
\nMore towed, hauled,
\nthan climbed.
\nThe reward?<\/p>\n

A brief idea of movement,
\nsuddenly realising the view
\nfrom the top wasn\u2019t important.
\nNot that there was a view that day.
\nA sense of trust, of believing.<\/p>\n

But also, a small warmth
\nin the joy of being,
\nthere, then.
\nEven a little joy,
\nat being me, for once.<\/p>\n

We roped up mushroom wall.
\nI failed on that, flail handed,
\nperplexed,laughing.
\nTwo feet from the top,
\nthough I enjoyed it,
\nmore than any succeeding.
\nI proved I was safe.<\/p>\n

The joy was still extant,
\nthe lack of purpose fulfilling.
\nWhich beer and bullshit later,
\nstill didn\u2019t dampen.
\nNot as much as the rain.<\/p>\n

Not love. That\u2019s not what it was.
\nNot the awakening of the love
\nI now hold.
\nSomething I hadn\u2019t felt before.
\nNot for a person,
\nnot for a place,
\nnot for anything tangible.<\/p>\n

Just the rightness of where I was,
\nand the people,
\nthe rock, the rain.
\nAll were right
\nfor their own sake.
\nSo many times since.
\nAnd still more to come.
\nI hope.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  A beginning of sorts. A new life, new friends, new hope, mainly of being someone, other, someone else. So, what did you offer me? Ill-equipped, ill-sorted, yet keen, naive keen. The day was all wrong, of course. Coarse drizzle, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1849,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-753","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/753\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}