Route 1 My palms are sweaty as my son is led out of the isolation room into the event area. He looks out at the audience. I smile when his gaze brushes over me, though he has told me the lights are too bright to see faces. He doesn’t lick his lips or fidget as he waits for the clock to start. He is focused and calm.

Hundreds of hours of practice sit behind his composure, as well as long drives to Seattle so he could train with the best coaches. There were nights of grueling workouts after school and homework and dishes were done, Saturdays of getting up at four in the morning to drive hours for competitions, and flights to more competitions in far off cities that barely registered in our minds.

My job is to drive, to reserve the plane tickets, to get him to the isolation room on time.

His job is to climb.

That is how we ended up here, at the final round of the USA Climbing Bouldering National Championships, in another city that was never on our bucket list, sleeping in another hotel with two double beds and free “hot” breakfast.

The clock starts. People begin to cheer. They shout his name and say, “You got it.”

How does he not feel the weight of the spotlight as he turns around to see his climbing route for the first time? How does he not blink at the chalk motes that fly when he dips his hands in his chalk bucket?

He scans the route, subconsciously pantomiming the moves he will need to make it to the top of the twenty foot vertical wall with no ropes, only a padded floor, to catch him if he falls. I see the route too, but all I can tell is that the start is balancy and that there is a dynamic move, a jump called a dyno, to the finish at the end.

A friend sits next to me, anther climbing parent. He leans over and whispers, “This route is perfect for his powerful style of climbing.” I nod, though I can’t tell if it is.

I relax my shoulders and feel the blood rush back in to my muscles. They tense again as he walks to the first hold. I try to breathe. It is my only job now, but I keep forgetting to do it.

He grips the start holds with his finger tips and puts the toes of his climbing shoes on the footholds several inches above the thick mats on the floor. His body pauses as he establishes the start for the judges, then he quickly moves to the next set of holds in the sequence. His body hangs from pieces of tan plastic no thicker than the discs of a rumble strip on a highway.

You can do it. You got this. I say over and over in my head, but my hands shake in my lap as he moves into the middle of the route, the part I am the least sure about. He grips two holds above him and hooks his heel on top of another to the side. He hangs there to rest. His pacing seems good, but then time stretches on and I begin to worry. Is he tired? Did he read the route wrong? Is he where he should be?

His only answer is a quick glance at the clock as he moves casually on toward the dyno, the jump at the end. I can’t watch, but I can’t look away either. He wants to make top three. He wants to earn a spot on the US National team. I want it for him.

The dyno is next. It is his favorite type of move, all power. He bends his knees deeply and springs like a lemur. His body sails through the air, as if gravity was just a theory, before his hands catch on the large hold that is the finish. He legs swing out under him. He pulls up and catches the footholds with his toes in a single fluid motion.

He makes eye contact with the judge below. My heart beats thunderously.  He gets a thumbs-up and the room erupts in applause. The parent next to me is ecstatic. I finally remember to breathe, for the moment.

That’s route 1 down, and three to go.