The Art of Holding On and Letting Go Read Online Free Page A

climbers do everything right. Conditions on mountains are out of their control, and nature runs its course no matter what.
    My tagua bracelet was back on my wrist again, along with the one I had bought for Mom. The bracelets tangled and entwined, the beads rubbing together. All I could do was wait.
    And worry. In my room, I unzipped my backpack pocket and reached for my worry stone. I fished around, pulling out a Starburst, a quarter, lint. No golden nugget. I dug through the rest of the stuff in my pack, pulling everything out one by one. Fleece jacket, water bottle, phone, wallet. My trusty, beat-up copy of Thoreau’s
Walden
.
    I felt all around the inside of my pack. More lint and a penny. Buena suerte.
    I dropped to my knees and looked under the bed and all around the floor. The chunk of pyrite was too big to have slipped through the cracks in the planks.
    I sat on the edge of my bed and dropped my head into my hands. Think, Cara, when did you last have it? I had turned the stone around in my hands before my climb yesterday, just like I always did. But everything after that was a muddle.
    I shook out my fleece jacket and fanned out the books, knowing it was useless. A postcard slipped out from the pages of
Walden
. “Greetings from Ecuador” was scrawled across a photo of a llama standing in front of a mountain range. It made it look like the llama was speaking.
    Dad
.
I smiled and flipped it over, squinting to read his messy handwriting.

    Dad always sent me postcards from his expeditions with lines of poetry or quotes from books. I had an entire bulletin board full in my bedroom at home. As usual, I didn’t know exactly what this quote meant or where it came from, but it made me feel better. I reread the lines out loud, tucked the postcard back into my book, and returned everything to my backpack. Mom and Dad and Uncle Max were climbing to their edges. Now it was time for me to climb to mine.
    I waited by myself in the isolation area, the last of my teammates to climb. I didn’t have my worry stone, I didn’t have my thermos of peppermint tea. I closed my eyes and imagined the golden stone in my hands, the warm peppermint tea, relaxing my throat, calming my insides.
    A woman entered the tent and gestured, and I followed her outside. I stood at the base of the competition wall and scanned the final route. I pantomimed the first few moves to focus my mind. There was a looming overhang to conquer on this route as well, and it was even higher up on the wall, at least fifty feet. I would need to conserve my energy.
    â€œBuena suerte,” I whispered.
    I breathed deeply and climbed on. Slow and steady, just like my parents on their trek, step after step, one foot after the other, one hand after the other, until it became a meditation. I reached the overhang and focused my energy at my heart.
    A loud grunt erupted from deep in my chest, and I launched over the ledge. My meditative pace continued and before I knew it, I was clipping the final bolt. I felt like I could keep going, just climbing and climbing. I peered over the top of the wall to the mountains in the distance and released a long sigh, sending my energy to Mount Chimborazo.
    I was back on the ground before I noticed that my bracelets were gone. I touched my bare wrist. They must have scraped against a hold and snapped. I crouched at the base of the climb and searched, digging through the thick layer of shredded black rubber. Chalk dust scratched my throat, making me cough, but I couldn’t find a single tagua bead. They had fallen through the cracks and empty spaces between the chips of rubber, buried below.
    I sat on the grass and watched the last competitor in my age bracket, my back resting against the bleachers, legs splayed out in front of me. My knees and shins were dotted with fading bruises and new greenish purple ones from my slamming fall the day before. Was it simply dehydration? An attack of nerves? It didn’t feel that