Snap.

The sky is blue glass.

It is the mixing bowl my mom uses to whip eggs with cream for omlettes.  The electric sapphire marbles my dad puts on the bottom of clear vases for yellow flowers.  The little snippets of glass my sister found on the beach when she was young and kept in a jar to share with her kids when she was older. The broken bottles my brother and I dug up in the woods by our house and cleaned out with warm water and put on our windowsills.

It is the perfect sky. It is the perfect night.

The air feels warm on the skin, the first time since last October. I take Apacha with me to run to the grocery, an attempt to hang out since I have been out of the house all day. He likes riding in cars. He knows cars lead to parks and hikes and adventures. I was going to zip home after the grocery to work on an essay due for class tomorrow, but as we come close to Frick I can't keep my eyes off the blue glass sky. My windows are down and the warm evening air lingers and swirls around us with temptation.

I want to see the view from the bench at night. I imagine the dots of homes on the rolling hills of Pittsburgh will be filled with families finishing dinner and settling into a book or a television show. I want to see the headlights of the cars moving from one place to another. I want to watch the smoke from the nearby factories disappear into the blue glass. Apacha wants all this too--a night adventure through Frick.

We only see a couple of people at the entrance of the park, and they are all leaving. Once again, Apacha and I have the park to ourselves. The sky is in the middle of light and dark, it seems it wants to stay in this day, this time, this near perfection.

As we walk down the hill, I call Matt who is traveling from Boulder to me. He is in Kansas. I wonder what his sky looks like as he drives the open, flat land. Apacha runs ahead as I talk to Matt. Together we are all looking at the sky. Matt asks me what my favorite cheese is, a question I had just asked him while I was at the grocery.

Apacha runs down the hill. He is about a hundred feet in front of me. I step the hill slowly, lost in the conversation with Matt, looking to the sky, admiring its rich blue hues. A soft breeze plays the air and the silhouettes of the limbs of the trees move strategically to its melody. My eyes swallow it up. Sometimes, it's too beautiful. I could just look and look and get lost in it all for hours.

My eyes scan the horizon for Apacha. They find the outline of a black creature. Apacha sees it too and he is only a few feet from it.

"Fuck," I yell, "Apacha NO!"

The creature freezes as Apacha pounces over.  His wildness takes over. He becomes another animal, an animal with intent to snap a neck and kill.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Hold on Matt. APACHA NO. Drop it."

My body runs, no sprints towards the scene. I don't know what Apacha has in his mouth but he is thrashing it around like a beast. The creature's neck in Apacha's jaw. The juxtaposition of the two is maddening. The creature plays dead and hangs limp from Apacha's alive and hungry mouth.

When I get to them I see the raccoon's eyes. I throw Apacha's leash down right next to him to startle and bring him out of the moment. Apacha notices but does not release the coon. I spank Apacha on his butt and grab his collar. The coon falls from his mouth.  It plops on the ground, lifeless but not dead. I move Apacha into the grass and make him lay too. I have to show power over the situation even though I am crying. Both animals are motionless under the blue glass. One with fear in his eyes and the other with the pure satisfaction of a catch. Although Apacha is in trouble with me, he is proud of himself, his second catch in our time together, the first being a rooster on a farm I worked at last summer in Belfast, Maine. 

I don't know what to do. The raccoon moves his frame a bit. It is startled and shocked. The beast still lingers. I get Matt back on the phone.

"Fuck. I don't know what to do."

I am starting to panic for the raccoon. I don't want him to die. His little grey highlighted eyes rest in my mind. He is cute and innocent. He was probably just coming out of the woods for the evening, waking up for his day under the moon.

Matt calms me down and makes some suggestions. Get Apacha out of there. Call animal control. Is there anyone else around? Does the raccoon look rabid? Did Apacha get bit? Is there any blood?

"I don't know. Apacha has his rabies shot. He's fine, I'm worried about the raccoon."

The sky moves from blue glass to a deep navy. I can't really see anything. I just see the reflection of the raccoon's eyes in woods. He doesn't move. I hang up with Matt and call my roommate Maggie. She doesn't answer. I look up the number for animal control. Maggie calls back. She can sense the panic in my voice that shakes as I retell the story. She suggests calling animal control too, reiterating it wouldn't hurt. She offers to come to the park.

"It's okay. I'm going to call animal control."

I hang up with Maggie and call animal control.  A man answers and seems distracted.

"Animal control."

"I would like to report a raccoon that appears to be hurt at Frick park."

I lie to the man. I don't tell him that my dog attacked the raccoon. 

"Where are you in the park?" the man asks.

I try to explain the location--down the treeline, off the path, across from the section that breaks off and goes to the dog park. The man can't pinpoint where I am. I explain again.

"So you are close to the dog park?" he wonders. He still seems distracted.

"No, I am down the hill across from the path that leads to the dog park."

"Where is the racoon?"

I had distanced Apacha and I from the raccoon and the farther away we got the more the raccoon hobbled back into the woods.

"A couple feet back from the treeline."

Explaining our location in the dark to a man who seemed disinterested was frustrating me more.

"What's your phone number?" he asks.

I give it to him, and he says they will call when they get there, though he doesn't know when that will be.

"How long?" I wonder.

"I don't know. It could be an hour. Could be more."

It is dark now and I know I can't wait around until they get there.

I decide to head back to my car to get Apacha out of the scene and wait there for a little bit. I wait for about twenty minutes and head home. They never call.

On the drive home, I think about the situation. I think about Apacha's instincts, his wildness. If I were completely removed from the situation and this was in the wild, nature would have been taking its course. But here, now, I have to intervene. I cannot stand by and watch my dog kill another creature. Even though it is what he wants, it is not what I want to see or experience. I think about natural order and how if it were up to Apacha he would hunt and gather for himself. He would tear into raccoons, and rabbits and chickens.  His head would align evenly with the rest of his body as he stalks his prey, then pounce on them to take them by the neck and snap and kill and devour.

But he is not that animal with me.

Do I take away from his wildness?

Strategic placements.

How did we get here?
Boots stuck with mud
at the rim of the hole,
the burial place for growth.

In the dirt we put the dead.
In the dirt we plant the roots.
In the dirt they intertwine.
Life. Death. Swelling underneath the boot.

If the world has a heartbeat, it is the dirt. Underneath the skin of the earth, the dirt churns us alive. It keeps us growing. A heartbeat you can pick up and let slide between your fingertips. Letting the smell rest on the palm. The piney, rooted scent of earth.

Thump, thump.

The goodness comes from the ground. 
What we plant is what we see.
The sky drips the blood of the heart
and the rain wakes up the dirt
ready for Spring. 

As Apacha and I pull up to Frick, rain starts to pelt the windshield. I put the car in park and turn off the music so we can listen to the sound of the rain meeting our surroundings. Little drops move all around us. My car, our shelter. I look back at Apacha who is sitting up in the back seat looking out the window, eager to get outside. I sit for a second, pondering the situation. In one direction, the sky is charcoal colored, fading into a deeper gray. In the other, a pale yellow peeks through low hanging clouds. We will either get drenched or watch the sun birth from the clouds. Apacha begins to whimper in the back. And so the decision is made.

I step out of the car and look up to the sky. We are directly underneath the intersection of the rain and the sun. The drips run down my face and my body charges in this release from the sky. I open Apacha's door and he hops right out. The rain picks up as we head to the bench, but the sky over the section of the park where the bench is located is the pale yellow. Its color pulls us along. I observe many people starting to exit the park--the rain had shooed them away. But it feels so good on my face. The night before was spent inside a crowded restaurant navigating the crowd of bar patrons with pointed elbows. Here, now rain is creating all this space between the land and me. I let my body be as fluid as the rain and relax. I feel free.

I think back to a vivid memory back when I was eighteen or nineteen. I was at a friends house. It must of been spring--April or May. A group of us were sitting outside in fold out chairs and on a picnic table. The grill was fired and smoking. Suddenly, an urgent rain took over the backyard. Everyone ran inside for cover but my friend Brett and me. We stood up and squeezed our eyes shut and let the rain overtake our bodies. Its pelts stung the skin a bit, but it rejuvenated our beings. Our friends yelled at us from inside, calling us hippies and weirdos for staying out in the rain. We just laughed at them and started dancing. We hopped up on the picnic table and let our bodies move as quickly and as suddenly as the rain. After a while, we went inside and changed into dry clothes. But the rain stuck with us. The rest of the night, Brett and I kept talking about how refreshed we felt.

And I think this now, as I move through the park, the rain moving down my body, contouring my shape as it slips down my frame to meet the earth, the ground and feed the dirt. All this feeling of renewal is justified. Spring is here. This is the season of renewal and regrowth. The season of sprouting and spreading. The earth is reawaking from winter slumbers. She is ready to blossom and inspire. And so am I.

Apacha and I stay on the paved path today, as the hills are wet with sticky mud. As we walk, I notice holes dug into the earth on the hill to our left. Next to each of the holes are baby fir pines, ready to be planted. They are strategically placed along the already grown treeline. Throughout the walk, I will notice all these trees ready to be planted. It seems a little strange to me. I haven't really witnessed this before in the park--the pre-planning of trees. The strategic placement. All throughout out the park, trees lay on their sides, their roots tucked into a little bulb and covered with a canvas sack. This isn't natural. This is planned. The whole layout of the park has been thought out by somebody. The positioning of trees, the placement of benches, the clear cut of land that once was forest.

There they rest, pine poking dirt,
the nutrients of the leaves disintegrating into their needle skins 
their vertical limbs out of place, as they should be upward
racing towards the sun. But they are fallen. Better yet, placed. 
My boney fingers yearn to pick up their frames and root them into the earth,
slowly gathering the dirt for their growth. Where they belong.
Or do they?

Does nature belong where we place it? Does it need our guidance? Our hands? Our man made structures to help it grow up right? Or would it be better off without us, growing or dying within its own will?

We are here amongst it. We find our ways to coexist. It is strange to see evidence of this. We visit parks and admire the trees. We breath their oxygen. We take what we can and hopefully this is a mutual relationship. We feed these trees with the soil we (parks and recreation) churn.

The bench rests amongst all these preparations. Behind the bench are the mounds of stone, gravel, sand and mulch to sprinkle throughout the park. These are the piles that were covered by snow all winter. These are the piles Apacha and I had climbed and slid the past couple of months. Now they are ready to serve their purpose. They are ready to fertilize and cover the grounds of the park for the growth of the Spring.

 Everything has a purpose in this park. 
As I sit and scribble, this bench is serving its purpose. 
It holds my frame amongst its frame. 
As we walk the paths, 
the gravel intercepts the dirt from 
boots and paws.
The trees take the eyes with wonderment,
as I study their beauty and peel their bark
and sniff its scent like a curious dog. 

The sky is clear now, the pale yellow spread the horizon like the drip of a watercolor, 
slowly spreading yellow with each stroke. 
We keep moving under the freshly painted sun.
It blushes the cheek. 

The sun peeps through the lingering clouds and the dirt gulps up the rain. Apacha and I walk on, taking a back path through the woods and notice more and more of these holes ready for planting or already planted trees circled by stakes and chicken wire to make sure the babies grow upright.

Within shelter is a growing shelter.

I try to take a panorama of my boots walking--a failed attempt. But I like imperfection.
And that's what I think about nature,  I like the imperfections, the dented shapes, trees growing out of stumps. The hiccups. And here at the park, I don't see many. The trees stand tall in unison, shooting toward the sun, ready for renewal.

Her boots hit the gravel and suddenly she was covered in dirt.

Violations.

This sign used to make me laugh.

And it still kind of does. Kind of.

Every time I pass this sign on the way to the bench, an image of enthusiastic, outdoorsy dog-loving individuals crowding prison creeps in my mind. An image of moms and dads and brothers and sisters and children lumped together in a jail cell chatting about the weather, the redundancy of the snow, or how many dogs they have waiting back home. Dogs waiting patiently for those long thirty days to be over. Dogs waiting by the door, day after day after day, listening for the little jaded ridges of the house key to slip into the lock and open. To be reunited with their owner.

Then, I realize this isn't really funny. This is actually a quite ridiculous thought. It is also a quite accurate thought. Of course, the people in prison are moms and dads and brothers and sisters and children. They are dog owners and they are most likely talking about the weather, counting down the days until their sentence is over, waiting for their release back into society. Waiting to inhale and exhale and breathe a dolup of crisp, almost spring air. 

The thoughts of prison are fresh in my mind this week because of a presentation I saw last week. Piper Kerman came to Chatham to speak about her book, Orange is the New Black, which is a more popular Netflix TV show. She spent over a year in prison and wrote about  her experience. She is a strong advocate for prison reform, and sadly, the new, fresh face of prisoners because of the popularity of the TV show. She is white (representing 18% of prison population--the other 65% is black and 16% latino) and comes from a solid middle class upbringing. Majority of prisoners aren't white and come from the lower class. She acknowledged that her time was a "fish out of water," experience. 

I admit I have little to no knowledge on prison life. I only know the facts that were presented last week and through the conversations and little blurbs I have read or heard on the news. The facts from last week's presentation that stick out--

• Since the 80s, prison population has increased by 800%.
• In 1980, nationwide, there were 500,000 prisoners.
• Today there are 2.3 million.
• Most of the prisoners are in (for many years and sometimes life) for nonviolent offenses to do with drug possession or dealing.
• In 30 states, a woman prisoner delivering a baby is shackled during childbirth and most often does not get to see her baby after delivery.

I type these things because I am disgusted by the way our society treats prisoners. I am disgusted with myself for my lack of knowledge on this subject. For my own stereotypes of prisoners. For how easy it is to not think about it. To lock them away and out of place in society and in our minds. So much money pumps into the prison system that could be used in other ways--education, reform, mental health, prison release programs. 

We had a discussion in class after Piper's presentation (try saying that ten times fast.) We talked about our disgusts with the prison system, our feeling of helplessness (How can we help? What can we do?) We talked about how Piper is not the face of prisoners, but somehow because of her class and race she gained readers and viewers. She shares her story with millions of other prisoners, but somehow hers is the one that stands out. Is this fair? Is this righteous? Sure, Piper is opening up a lot of ears and eyes about the prison system and the need for prison reform. It's a Catch 22. She is the face. She can't help it. People love the show. People are curious about what is happening behind bars. She might as well take the chains and do something about it. But what about everyone else? What about all the other stories?

All this is muddled up in my mind as Apacha and I walk to the bench. The air is brisk and the wind keeps slapping my face. I tuck my naked hands into my pockets for warmth and listen to everything moving around me. We take a new route today and walk around the ball field, where little boys, age nine or ten are playing baseball. 

They keep yelling, "Ball."

Apparently the pitcher is not that accurate. The kids keep walking bases. I stand there for a couple of minutes and watch them play. I am in awe of their innocence--young and running free with dirt and dust on their sweatshirts, bending over bases, eager to sprint.

Innocence. Guilt. My mind keeps going back to the prisoners. I wonder what games they play in prison. I wonder what they do all day long. What they think about. How they survive. All this wondering, I do from afar. Outside. Under an open blue sky with clouds billowing about. I wonder if I'll do anything with these thoughts. Or if they'll just disappear. I wonder if I'll get lost in my own silly worries, like not sleeping at night and all these pages I must write.

We keep walking. 
We hug the treeline. Branches still bare.
The birds chatter about. We listen. 
Apacha runs ahead. I watch and step over dirt.
It clogs into my boots. 
Apacha shits in the woods. 
I don't pick it up. It belongs there.
Natural fertilizer. 
Apacha meets a poodle and a St. Bernard 
They sniff each other's butts and move along.
I am cold, but free. How come I am free?
I've made countless mistakes. 

At the bench there is a family of three.
A little girl in a pink puffed jacket bends over rocks.
She picks through them and stuffs some in her pocket.

They are weary of me and move along.
I sit and scribble, nothing important just observations--

Yellow running shoes highlight the ground
French couple talking about the trash--déchets.
Slow tick of wind - 
Sun powdered eyelashes cause the eyes to set.
Apacha's tongue too big for mouth. 
Wonder if awkward for him. 
Send Tony First Day of My Life video. 

In the distance is the land of barking dogs (the dog park.) It is strategically placed a couple hundred feet from the bench. Apacha is eager to get there and bounce around with new and old friends. My body is cold from sitting so we get up and climb the gravel piles and get on the path to the dog park. 

There are two black lab mixes, a husky and Apacha. They run and play for about a minute until Apacha gets bored. Then, the gate screeches and all the dogs stop and tilt their heads to check out the new arrival. She is small and white and wears a little vest. Her name is Lola. She is a Bichon Frise. She probably weighs twelve pounds. She prances in. Her white hair curly and trimmed. She looks out of place.

All four big dogs gang up on her.
She isn't scared. 
She is faster and runs away. 
Once they catch up, they corner her.
The big dog owners grab collars. 
Teeth are flashed. 
The little white dog gets scooped up
and exits. 
Her time shorter. 
She didn't fit in. 
But she held her own. 

Everyone staggers off and says their goodbyes. Apacha and I run across the dog park and exit out the back. The gate is rusty and makes a shriek as I open it. There is another gate. For a moment, we stand surrounded by rusting fence. Confined. Just for a moment. I think, again, back to the prisoners. Back to their surroundings. A 6 x 8 steel cell. 

I open the other gate and step onto the path canopied by winter's bare branches. Sunbeams pour through. They hit my face. I absorb the sun. Apacha runs ahead. I watch him sniff out the path. We continue on.



Check these out --

• http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/11/23-petty-crimes-prison-life-without-parole

• http://piperkerman.com/justice-reform/justice-reform-organizations

And the video I need to send to my friend Tony. It's lovey.

 

 

Firsts.

I was tempted to cheat today.

I was tempted to skip our weekly Monday afternoon hike to the bench. Since class was canceled last week, Apacha and I ventured to the bench quite a few times at different hours. We observed the horizon drip pinks into the clouds and blush the houses on the hills during our dusk hike last Wednesday. The hills of Frick were beet red, causing the eyes to squint into awe.

I remember the first time Apacha and I discovered Frick. It was August and the sun was warm on our bodies. I was wearing a dress the color of lavender and my skin was dark from being outside all the afternoons I could be outside all afternoon. I found Frick on a whim, driving aimlessly around my new city. Attempting to gain my sense of direction. Everyday we drove to a new section of town and searched it out. We let ourselves get lost, then found, then lost. This was before I had an iPhone. All I had was a map.  My new boss thought I was crazy for this. She called me old school. Who knew having a map was old school. Hand written directions were scattered all over my passenger seat last August. I would reverse them to get home. Quickly, I was finding shortcuts. Pittsburgh is full of shortcuts if you search out for them.

Apacha was with me when we passed the signs for Frick and I slowed my car and found a spot. It was around seven o'clock and the sun was starting to fall and the moon was beginning to rise and we needed to stretch our limbs.

It was one of those dreamy summer nights, with the air perfectly warm but not too humid. We hopped out of the car and strolled the paths of Frick. On this first trip, I found a different bench, underneath an umbrella of a tree, and that is exactly what the tree became on that first initial visit--an umbrella. A gentle rain started to drip as Apacha and I climbed the hill. I had a book with me, I don't remember which one, but I pulled it out of my bag and sat on the bench underneath the umbrella tree and listened the the rain drip down the leaves the color of asparagus. Everything on the ground was green--the grass, the leaves, the hills running into the bottoms of the other, dipping into each other.

And that sky. That beautiful summer sky. The sky was a watercolor of pinks--pink lips sipping a cosmopolitan. Salmon swimming a bed of red roses. Flamingos dancing a tongue. And it was the whole damn sky. Despite the rain it was glowing, screaming, bleeding pink. Blood blending water.

I remember sitting there, with the book in hand and Apacha at foot and the smell of a soft, summer rain in my nose. I inhaled it. I inhaled the earth around me and sucked it up into my lungs. This was Pittsburgh. This was my place to call home for the next two years. This was my place to swallow and absorb and inhale and exhale day in and day out and day in. This was a new segment of the person I was becoming.

And that day, I had no one but myself. I talked to Apacha and strangers at the park, strangers at the cafes, strangers at the library. I was a stranger amongst strangers and it was all very unfamiliar. I loved almost every minute of it. I was new. I was unfolding. Nobody knew my name. I could have changed my name. I could have changed my story. I could have faked an accent. I could of cut my hair and dyed it blonde and no one would have known the difference.  I was nobody yet. I was invisible. This city and I had no qualms. We had no histories. We were just beginning to adjust. To become familiar with one another.  In those early days with Pittsburgh I was climbing and crossing many things. I was in awe of the friendly demeanor of its people. I wanted to sit in the chairs people placed in front of their homes to save their parking spots. I tried pierogies. I visited the Andy Warhol Museum. I found all the good thrift stores and started filling my house with things. New, old things. Other peoples disregards.

Apacha and I sat there for over an hour. We watched the sky fade into purples.
Lavender. Petunia. Verbena. Passiflora. Salvia. Pansies. Daylily. Iris. Aster. Bacopa. Yarrow.

The rain stopped and we walked back to the car under the appearance of the moon. I remember thinking how nice it was to have this park in the middle of the city. A few miles from my new home. Every night after that until school started, Apacha and I ventured back to this park. It became a routine for us. We met people along the way, at the dog park and they would give me Pittsburgh advice. Tell me the good spots. The best hiking spots for dogs. Good places for breakfast. The best place for cheap furniture.

I quickly fell for Pittsburgh because of the people I met within its realm. I went from nobody to somebody. I shook hands and looked people in the eyes and listened as they spoke and found truth in their stories. Over time, I have gathered a tribe. Through school and work I have found a new community. A strong, solid set of people who support each other. Who encourage each other. Who engage each other.

Within each other, we find a little bit of ourselves.

Now, on this Monday, this morning. I almost cheated. I almost headed straight to the coffee shop to do school work because there was much to do and the air was too cold and I didn't feel like a park outing this morning. I felt like sipping strong coffee and listening to Bill Callahan and writing. I felt like shutting everyone out and spilling myself onto the page.

But those two eyes. Those two prehistoric yellow eyes looked into mine. Apacha knew it was Monday. He had to. He started pawing at me and talking in little barks and mini howls. He was fiesty and he deserved to be. He deserves his Monday hikes. Just because we went on extra outings last week doesn't mean I should deprive him of our Monday hike. And once I zipped up my coat and pulled on my gloves, he was bouncing around the house with excitement. He knew exactly where we were going. I opened the door and he ran straight to the car. He usually rests in the snow for a bit. But he went straight there, his fox tail wagging back and forth as he ran.

And, of course, it was all worth it. Once we got out and ran our bodies into the redundant powdered sugar snow we became alive again. We stopped to observe the birds flying overhead. Singing the songs of spring. The birds were about--bluejays and sparrows. And one beautiful bird, I could not identify. It was large with black top wings which were white as the snow underneath with a mahogany head. It soared by its solo self from tree to tree, gliding with the wind.

Once we arrived at the bench, the sun was directly overhead--twelve o' clock. The fire pit from last week was covered, but a bigger and better version was built about a hundred feet from it, with the snow covered gravel piles on three of its sides. A smarter placement for the pit, as the piles of gravel block the wind and hold the warmth.

Again, I wondered who this person is and if they are sleeping out here at night. Outside my window, as I type it is 3 degrees. In my house it is 66 degrees. I have the warmth of Apacha next to my frame and my feet tucked under his body. I get to curl myself under a couple of blankets. I wear fleece leggings and a thermal.

How did I get so lucky, Pittsburgh?

I didn't cheat today. I couldn't do that to Apacha. I owe him these hikes, these walks in the park, his time to sniff out his own version of Pittsburgh and make his bold yellow marks. We stayed longer in the park than we usually do. I climbed the gravel hills covered with snow and watched the cars on the interstate slow down into a traffic jam. They looked like a train. Connected from front to back to front to back. I angled my body backwards and jumped down the hill, sliding a good six feet--for a second it felt like I was snowboarding. Apacha barked at me to hurry up, he was eager to get to the dog park which was right beyond the gravel piles I was surfing.

This time I followed him. He led me to the land of barking dogs. His tail whipped back in forth and his hackles shot up. He ran and played with dogs of all sizes at the dog park. He flew through the snow and quickly became the alpha. He barked and the others followed.

Now, next to me, he sleeps and dreams. As he dreams, his paws shoot and he whimpers and howls. His body quivers. I picture him dreaming of running free in the endless blankets of snow with wild dogs. And then, I think--these aren't dreams, these are Mondays.

I won't cheat.

I owe him Mondays. And Tuesdays. And all other days. I owe him his wildness. His run frees. His dartings into the woods. His endless blankets of snow (which do seem quite endless.)

Unclaimed.

I laced up my boots this week. That's right, laced up my boots. The winter boots stayed at home today as most of the snow has melted and dripped and flowed down the Pittsburgh hills. I laced and knotted the blue strings of my ankle boots for this week's journey to the bench. 

We left the house irritated, Apacha irritated with me because I kept running back into the house to get something, or check something, or change something. He waited patiently on the front porch as I kept returning inside. I was irritated with myself for too many reasons--sleeping in, forgetting things and just a general self disappointment. I hoped the walk to the bench would change that, bring a resurgence of energy and fulfillment with the self. The past two days have been consistent disapproval for no reason at all. Going. Going. Going. Seems to happen when there is much on the plate, and I keep adding more. Seems to happen when I forget to slow down and pile on anxiety to small tasks. 

When we finally do arrive to the park, I realize I forgot my gloves, and again curse myself. Although the snow has melted, the windchill puts the temperature at 14 degrees. My long boney fingers do not appreciate the winded cold. Apacha is eager in the backseat to get out. 

The park has a whole new composition compared to the past few weeks of snow. The grass looks worn and defeated from the winter. It has a combover from the constant weight of boots on top of snow, the stampede of warriors pushing the once erect blades of grass into limp, sad defeated soldiers. But at least they lay together, fallen into the arms of their comrades. At least they fought winter's war with one another. And there is still a chance the ice and snow will be back for more, round after round, until the noble season of spring declares the treaty of sunbeams and gentle showers. 

From the top of the hill, I admire the simple blending of the yellow-green grass with the blue-big sky, it reminds me of a Rothko painting. The two colors trump everything else, the browns of the trees and the patches of white clouds moving dissipates to the blue and the green. My favorite kind of pictures to snap are of landscapes like these--simple and concise. A lone tree in an Ohio pasture. A swallowed sky by the open sea. Split images of landscape and sky. Simple. Pure. Beautiful. 

Apacha is down in the valley of the hills, sniffing out the treeline. He looks up to me, waiting [seems to be a theme today] for me to catch up, for our adventure to continue. I run down the blades and feel my body move in strides. My arms squared at a ninety degree angle, fists clenched, shoulder blades bouncing, legs extending, then tucking. It feels good to run into the open sky, the brisk air. I meet Apacha at the bottom and he smiles up and runs next to me along the treeline. Together, our bodies extend and tighten and we move in unison.

Our own small wolf pack of two. 

With most of the snow melted, I notice all the trash around the park and make a mental note to bring a bag next week to pick up other people's crap. It pisses me off when people disregard nature, throwing their junk into the woods like it is some kind of landfill. Most of the trash is plastic bottles and plastic bags and aluminum cans. Most of the shit is shit we don't need anyways, but fill our bodies with then trash into the earth. I noticed last week that all the trash cans in the park were overflowing, perhaps because of the snow and lack of city pick-up, and maybe all this trash came from people putting the bottles next to trash cans, then the natural elements of wind and snow rolled it away, down the hills and into the woods. I hope the latter is the case, making us humans less lazy, but still very much so. I have a feeling though, that it is just people throwing their junk into the woods.

Enough ranting. Back to running.

We run about halfway to the bench, until Apacha darts off into the woods in the same spot he did last week. I squint my eyes to see if I see a creature, but scan nothing. Sometimes, I think he just runs wildly for the sake of running wild, something I need to do more of--running for no reason at all.

As I wait for him to run back, I notice a bunch of nutshells collected on a tree stump. I wonder who these belong to. Perhaps a squirrel, or a raccoon or maybe a chipmunk. At first, I think they are black walnuts, and they may very well be. After looking some things up, I decide they are Hickory nuts. Upon investigation I find that Hickory nuts are eaten as a last resort when nothing else can be found. I hope they are not Hickory nuts, I hope the forest animals are not hunting and gathering things of last resorts. 

Apacha reappears and rests his body on a patch of snow and looks up the hill to a black poodle and its owner leaving the dog park. I tell him to stay, and he does, but he can't help his whimpering. His cries for dog companionship. The times I do take him to the dog park, he runs around for a minute, then comes back to me--easily bored and unamused. 

We continue on.

We are nearing the bench when I notice loads and loads of deer scat on the grass--little pebbles of poop in piles a few feet from each other. It all seems relatively fresh. I have to watch my step in this last portion of the walk, but appreciate this is where the deer like to hang, in this little pocket of the treeline, tucked into the woods. Apacha decides to poop here too, amongst his deer friend's shit.

As we approach the bench, I notice a small circle of stones filled with kindling and sticks behind the bench--a nice little fire pit behind the bench. It is late morning, and I walk my boots up to the perimeter of the fire pit and pretend it is providing warmth. I circle my palms into the other over the pit. I wonder who made this. I wonder if they slept back here. I wonder if it is their not so secret spot too--a place to watch cars move back and forth on the interstate. A place to sit still and observe movement. I bend down over the fire and pick through it, hoping to find more clues to when it was lit. There are a few cigarette buds in its realm--the only clue I can find. There is no lingering warmth coming from it. I assume it is a couple days old. I scope out the area for other clues and find more cigarettes in front of the bench, and a fresh litter of beer cans down the hill. Seems, my bench is a good spot to have a smoke and a beer. I wonder how the view is at night. With the city lights and headlights of cars. I wonder how the stars are here. If they are visible, or if the light pollution dwindles them. I'll have to venture here one night soon.

I don't sit on the bench today, it doesn't seem like my own anymore. Instead, I sit a few feet away over the blonde hay that too has been defeated by winter's snow. Apacha comes over and sits to my left. I kick my boots over the edge and scan the horizon. Also to my left, about two hundred feet away, a crumbled royal blue sweatshirt scatters itself amongst the dirt. Who is this person? Who is this owner of a royal blue sweatshirt, some kind of filtered cigarette and drinker of natural light? Or is is a variety of persons, coming from different places, for different reasons. I wonder how my bench services others. For me, it is a getaway, a place to sit still and observe the movement of nature within a city. For someone else, it might be a place to get lost and high. For others a long sturdy structure to sleep at night, amongst a burning fire.

It is nice to think of the bench's purposes. And I realize it is not my bench to claim. It holds many people. Maybe one day Apacha and I will get here and someone else will be occupying it. But for now, at this hour, on this day, it is our spot to sit and listen to the whispers of woods and notice three seasons below my boot--the leaves of fall, the snow of winter and the debut of spring's sharpened blades.

Movement.

I'm about to leave the bench when I see her down the hill about 300 feet. She is slowly stepping the snow with her head hunched and white tail flickering. Her limbs blend with the limbs of the trees and for many moments she is still. 

A few feet behind her is her sibling. I can't tell the sex of either, but deem the first fawn a female because of her presence. She engulfs femininity in her delicate steps, her precise movements - the wiggle of her tail that looks like a feather duster when it shoots upright. She is a showstopper, a headturner -- something that draws you in for no other reason than pure beauty.

From my bench, I watch her movements, her stillness and her power to stop me in time. The other fawn, I automatically assume is a male. His steps are more rushed and seem clumsy -- not as delicate as his sister. 

It's silly of me to catagorize these attributes to the sexes. I have no idea, I just write their story in my head. I picture them running through the woods -- hopping between the branches bare. I picture them without us. I close my eyes and picture this horizon without the homes, without the interstate, without all this humanized rushed movement of going, going, going.

It's hard to picture this land without us. It is all I have ever known. Movement. Going. Sheltered.

It's hard to slow down in the midst of everything. 

But I do now. I close my eyes and listen.

The wind is moving briskly across the landscape, across my face. My cheeks are breeze rosed and exposed to the open air. The wind hits the trees and sends the branches into each other, causing a gentle drum to its song, and the trucks and cars of I-376 add chimes a low, baritone whoooosh, whooosh. The hum from the distant Squirrel Hill tunnel is the undertone to this song. If you listen, you can hear the vehicles exiting the tunnel and shooting into the open air highway. And to top it all off, the wind descends the gathered snow off the crying trees and when it hits the earth -- it sounds like all blink. 

I open my eyes and blink off the snow that gathered on its lashes and wipe my face. I look back to the deer. She is resting her frame on the path, her front legs tucked into her back legs. She is hugging into herself, probably maximizing her body heat and warmth. Her brother stands behind her -- a watch fawn in the day -- scanning the forest for any potential threat. 

Apacha does the same for me, quite lazily, behind the bench. There is a nice shade behind the bench from my shadow and the bench's shadow and his body mimics the fawn. His legs tucked into each other and his head plopped into the snow. His eyes are closed too, and his ears are perked up. It seems as if he is listening to the sound of day as well.

I stand up, and the fawn does too. She looks up to me, and I down to her. A meditative staring contest with no blinks, no smiles, just pure adoration in my part. I see now, that their mother is there with them, and I am surprised I did not see her before. Her frame almost double the frame of her fawns and they all look up to me, and I down to them. Apacha is up and alert now. 

These must be the deer that he chased through the woods on the way to the bench. 

We started out on our usual route to the bench - down the hill and along the treeline. We were about halfway to the bench, when Apacha took off into the woods. I chased after him, but his four legs trumped my two and he was made to prance through the woods. I stopped and watched him move, again a wild man in the wilderness. His coat camoflauged with the trunks of the trees and his limbs mingled with the branches. After a bit, he gave up and ran back to me, tongue hanging loose and a look of satisfaction in the chase. 

Two hikers with two dogs -- Bella and Getty, both poodle mixes -- appeared out the woods, off the path Apacha had just returned from. 

"He was after three deer. Two fawns and a momma," one of the guys said.

"He blends in with the woods. We watched the whole thing," the other said.

I asked about the trail, and they said it was beautiful and they all connect. They set off towards their cars and Apacha and I stepped into the woods. I figured we would do a c - curve around the backside of Frick and then hike up to the bench from the other direction. We followed the trail, and quickly it kept meeting with other trails, and Apacha and I kept taking lefts to attribute to the curve. The snow at some points was almost up to the top of my boot -- a good nine to ten inches. 

We climbed around for a bit, and I stopped on a path to look up, hoping to see the bench, but in reality, there would be no way to see it. The angle was too sharp and the bench sits back a couple of feet off the overlook, so the earth would block the view. So we kept moving and heading west. Apacha was getting tired and followed behind me, which is not a good sign for him. Usually he leads the way, sniffing out the trails and checking out the scene. Usually he has to sit and wait for me to catch up before he runs ahead again. 

But he is tired and he lingers behind. I almost get a little panicky, knowing these woods have miles and miles of trails, and my intuition could be off, and I could be leading us in the wrong direction on empty stomachs and no water (well there was plenty of snow to turn to, and Apacha did, quite often.) 

The minute I started to question myself was the minute we found the bigger path about 300 feet below the bench. I knew we were on the right track because we had hiked these trails in the fall around the first time I found the bench. 

I stopped and Apacha rested in the snow. He tucked his nose into its coldness and lapped some into his mouth. 

Thinking back now, we stopped in almost the same spot where I saw the fawns and the momma deer. We stopped to rest in the same proximity. I wonder if they smelled Apacha. I wonder if they stopped there to sniff us out. To scope out potential threats. Or if it was just the right spot to catch the afternoon sun on their coats and rest while the hunt for food continues.

From the bench, I see them, and they see me. I break our staring contest and walk away. After a couple of steps I stop and look back to her. She is still looking up to me. Wondering about my movements. It seems as if we are all questioning the movements. The breeze blows again, tangling the loose hair across my face where it gets stuck on my cheeks. I brush it off. The cars move on. The wind keeps going.

We all keep going. 

Stopping from time to time to feel the nice flirtation of the wind on the cheek. 

Josephine.

A mustard scarf wraps around Josephine's neck. A red coat the color of cherries adorns her frame. Its hood covers her hair - the color of straw under the sun. My black ski pants are a bit too big for her waist and keep falling down a bit as she runs through the snow. My boots warm her feet as she moves. She is laughing and running with Apacha.

I stop to watch them run. My dog and my best friend visiting from North Carolina. My best friend who got off a plane Saturday morning and couldn't quite catch her breath because of the crisp Pittsburgh winter air. She said the air was like ice cream - too cold but felt and tasted good.

Josephine, Josie for short, lives in Wilmington, North Carolina. An old little city on the Atlantic coast with cobblestone streets. A city that is quiet in the winter and bustling in the summer. It is 59 degrees in Wilmington today. It is 21 degrees in Pittsburgh.

Yesterday, Josie, had me stop my car so she could take a picture of the snow covered streets and the trees with patches of white on their topside. Yesterday, she looked out the window of my second story room and observed the rooftops of the Pittsburgh homes and the cars that lined the street - they all were topped with a soft down comforter. Her friends from back home warned her of the cold. I'm sure people questioned why she was traveling to Pittsburgh in the midst of winter, in the midst of snow, in the midst of cold air that is hard to swallow.

Sun or snow - we are bonded in a way that the elements can't quite combat. It's been two years since we last saw each other. Two long years. Our lives have moved us in different directions. We met in Asheville, North Carolina four years ago for Americorps Project Conserve. I remember the first time I met her. She pulled up for Americorps orientation in Brevard, North Carolina. She rolled down her window and asked if she was in the right place. I told her she was not. Confused, she started to drive off. Then, I stopped her. I told her I was kidding. She didn't think it was too funny.

Josie was a little unsure about me at first. But, that quickly changed. We bonded over music and food and hikes. After awhile, we were a bit inseparable.

It's been two years. Two long years.

Josie was there when I got Apacha from the Humane Society. They were going to put him down because he was so timid. He was so timid because he was badly abused by his previous owner. He was scared of bearded men. He was scared of long sticks and brooms. He was scared of being struck in the face. Apacha was 78 pounds when I got him. He barely ate. He hid behind me when my guy friends with beards (which was almost every guy in Asheville) came over. He was boney thin. He was frightened. He followed me around with weary eyes.

When Josie saw Apacha this time around, she was amazed. He's gained about twenty pounds since then. His winter coat was strong and he came right up to her. He trusted her and howled into the air. He wasn't scared anymore.

Now, they are running in the snow. Josie stops to wait for me to catch up. She is amazed at how active and excited Apacha is.

"He is meant for this weather," she exclaims.

"I know. It breaks my heart a bit."

We watch him run around the snow by himself. We watch him kick it up with his nose and freeze into his whiskers. He runs back to us. Josie dips herself into the snow and hugs her two arms around his mane. He is happy and panting.

Josie asks about the bench.

"Where is it?" she wonders.

"Right around this bend here." I point up the hill.

Minutes later we get there. Josie asks what is under the humps of white snow. I tell her it's gravel. Gravel for the park. Gravel to sprinkle in the spring over the paths, when we don't need to sprinkle the beads of salt over ice anymore.

Josie takes a picture of the view from the bench and says her camera doesn't do it justice. And she is right, every picture I have taken from the bench doesn't quite capture what the eye sees. But, I guess that is true for any picture we take. We are just getting a segment of what we see. We are taking a picture to remember, a picture to look back to, a picture to store that moment in time because we cannot rely on memory all the time. Pictures fill the gaps. So does writing. It fills those little holes in the mind, the moments you can't quite recall every specific detail, which happens all the time with writing about place.

She bundles some snow into her glove and attempts to compact it into a ball. It doesn't mold a shape, instead it just crumbles into a thousand little pieces. She throws it overhead, and it sprinkles down, back to where it came from.

The last time I saw Josie was in Asheville. It was my birthday. I was leaving the city for a road trip. I needed to get out. I had been there for almost four years. I was stuck. I needed to travel. I needed to find myself in another place. Josie came from Raleigh (where she was living at the time) to say goodbye. It was the tail-end of May. We went swimming in the the creek and drank PBRs and sunbathed on long flat rocks. Apacha was there, too. He dipped his warm body into the water and rested in the shade.

It's been two years. The wind pushed us in many directions. She had quit her job in Raleigh and moved to Wilmington to be with her boyfriend and started another job. Her dog passed away. Her brother got married. I had fallen in love with a man. We had traveled to Mexico. I got into grad school. I moved to Pittsburgh. All this happened in the change of eight seasons. It was sunny in Wilmington. It was snowy here.

I look to the bare branches and wonder what they represent. Winter is naked. We are clothed. We cover ourselves with layers and layers. Nature strips itself to bare bones. It doesn't need to be covered. It stands alone. Winter is a fierce moment in time.

Josie and I talk about the cold. How it makes us tired. Inside my house, the heat exhausts us. Outside our door is winter knocking. It creeps into the cracks of the windows, underneath doorways, through outlets. We can't escape it until it escapes us.

Outside, we huddle ourselves together and look out to the horizon. My right arm over her shoulder, her left arm around my waist, our two red coats blending into one.

We stand and watch time move. We wonder how long it will be until we see each other again. How many seasons will pass. What will this view look like the next time she is around? Will the eye be able to travel as far? Or will green leaves block the views? Will we be wearing shorts and tank tops? Will she still be traveling from Wilmington? Will her hair be long or short? Will we still fit into each other's clothes? Will Apacha still be around?

There is no telling in time. Only the seasons know what's coming. We can only move gently and step slowly and hope the next time around it will be better than this time around. Or it will be the same. Or it will be different.

It better not be two years. Two long years.

Two years too long.

Cycle.

Apacha has a keen sense of direction. When we are about two blocks from the park, he perks up in the backseat and starts whimpering, knowing that we are approaching our destination. I watch him in my rearview mirror as his eyes sharpen and they look out the window to his right. His tongue -  in times of heat and excitement - becomes too big for his mouth and it drops out of him. It’s the color of a number two pencil’s eraser.

He whimpers again as I pull into an easy parking spot right in front of the entrance – a good sign. Frick will be sparse with people again. I like it when he and I take over the hills and explore the park’s territory as if it was our own. I put the car in park and gather up my things. Apacha’s cries crack me up and I taunt him a bit with a howl. He joins me and tilts his head back – his underjaw perpendicular to the roof of the car and creates a beautiful, low howl. It is my favorite sound. 

We hop out. The clouds drift into one and hang low on the horizon. The sun peeks a bit – sending warm rays overhead. Throughout the day it will tease us with its presence. On the way to our bench, we pass another bench near the entrance with a key chain hanging from its end with what looks like two house keys. It dangles from the wood, curled into the snow. It’s always nice to see lost and found in a park. Last week, I noticed someone propped a glove into a tree’s branch, extending the branch as a waving arm. I thought about giving it a high five, but decided against it.  I wonder what the protocol for finding things in the park is. Put it near the closest available thing? Do parks have lost and founds? 

An entourage of dogs is heading our way. Six dogs and two dog-walkers. The dogs somehow aligned themselves from smallest to largest, with the smallest being what looked to be a beagle and the largest a golden doodle. Apacha was eager to get to them, barking and pulling his leach taut. The ladies escorting the dog parade did not want Apacha near their dogs. It’s always interesting when dog owners do not want their dogs to meet mine. I wonder if it is because of his appearance – how his head dips like a hunter and shifts back and forth with each step. How his hackles pop up and his fur fans out. He is an intimidating sight, and I think often scares people away - even when I assure them he is friendly.

They wait for us to pass.

Apacha doesn’t dwell on it for long as we get to the tip of the hill, and the leash unhooks and we run – fly down its spine. He is ahead of me and his body becomes long and lean as his front paws extend as his back paws tuck. When he runs, he unites his back legs as one because of his hips. He knows not to put too much body weight on his back left leg or he will be hurting later. He has been using this technique for a while now, especially as he hops up the stairs at night, a task that has become harder and harder as the winter cold and age weigh in. But now, here, he forgets about the pain that shoots throughout his body throughout the day, and runs into his blanket of white. He kicks up the snow, as do my boots, and this week the consistency of the snow is more compact than last week’s powdered sugar. This week the snow rolls itself into little balls as we walk. They remind me of Ping-Pong balls.

 

I continue to kick them up until we get to the base of the hill. We stop. Apacha sits his bum on the earth and into the snow and I hear another beautiful sound coming from above. It’s the wind hitting the dead leaves whispering- a crinkled old folk song. Apacha hears it too and looks up to the leaves – which look like Maple leaves – as they dance to their own whisper, gently tapping one another on the shoulder with the help of the wind to create this winter melody of something dead meeting something ever-present and alive. I stand and Apacha rests underneath the tree and close my eyes and absorb this sound, this simple sound of the breeze gently moving across the day. 

We carry on after a few minutes, and Apacha is hot on a scent. He digs his nose into the snow, and inhales the smell. He does this again and again, creating a series of polka dots in the snow and I now I am curious. I kick up the snow around his search, but find nothing. He descends into a twig forest and I follow. But we find nothing but lonely branches mangled into the sky. He runs back to me with a grin.

Finally, we approach our bench, and I don’t go directly towards it. Instead, I circle its backside, and explore the territory behind it. Apacha goes straight towards it. All the gravel is covered with drips of snow. I find evidence of a good time had in a couple empty cans of Natural Light. The image of the can almost makes me gag. Too many of those in undergrad. Too many until, I realized that my body couldn’t handle the cheap beer, that after just a few, the beer would momentarily cripple my stomach into knots until my body expelled it from my mouth in a liquid the color of the original highlighter. It’s interesting how the sight of an empty beer can haunt you and even after years, send the stomach warning signals. The body, the mind, always complementing each other, warning each other and encouraging each other. It is good to listen to what it has to say. No more Natural Lights. Ever. Again. 

There is a huge pile of dirt in diagonal to the bench and it keeps dropping itself onto itself. It keeps giving out and collecting itself in lower levels. This is how rock formations are made. This is how nature stacks itself. The weight of the snow pushes the dirt down, compresses it into something more solid. When the sun comes around – as it will while we are here – it will change this pattern. All the elements contribute to nature’s pattern. I walk to Apacha and look down the hill and notice the same thing with the trees. The weight of the snow from the past couple of weeks caused the branches to snap and sway downwards into the earth. As far as my eyes could see, the earth was falling forward, falling into itself. When spring comes along – they should spring back up – hence the season’s name. 

The bench again is full of snow, so I continue to pace around it and explore its surroundings. I walk to the bench’s left and the compact earth becomes soft, almost bouncy. I wonder what is underneath this layer of snow, so I kick it up. Sure enough, I am walking on leaves, little hills of leaves. I continue kicking them up. They are damp with winter. I pick some up and bring them to my nose. There is no smell to describe them but the smell of the wet earth.  Dirt. They smell wonderful. I think about how they contribute to the coming spring, a natural fertilizer for the next round of sprouting. Within their dead, fallen souls a new season awaits. And we wait for it, one looking forward and the other wishing to stay here, in this moment, in this bouncy, comfort of snow.  

Apacha is relaxed, his body sprawled and resting upon the cold, his head down, eyes closed. The sun shoots down on his coat, and as I pet him, I feel its heat. It warms my palm. Here he is. 

And here we are - between the sun and the snow.