Directions.

Our journey to the bench always starts at my house as I zip up my winter coat and pull its hood over my head.

Apacha knows instantly we are going out. His tail shifts back and forth like windshield wipers. His two front paws stretch in front of him. He dips into downward dog, and then springs up with a deep gruff. His mouth whistles into a howl as he talks to me.

"Wanna go for a hike?"

His head rubs against my thigh. More talking. I open the door and tell him to go to the car.

He stops to pee first, his left leg pulled up perpendicular to the naked shrubs in my neighbors' yard. I notice how yellow his pee looks in the snow. I wonder to myself if he is drinking enough water. (Later my roommate will wonder the same thing with her dog. We decide it's just the contrast of the luminous snow to the yellow piss.)

We get in the car and drive to the park. We are always driving to be in nature. To get away from the city, the salted sludge of the Pittsburgh hills, where after days on the ground the snow turns ugly and dirty.

We are constantly searching for something clean for our lungs, for our eyes, for our mind. We are constantly trying to get away. Our house too stiff with the recycled warm air it pumps throughout the day. The house too tempting with its cookies on the counter, the books on the shelf to slip into. So we get away, Apacha and I.

We go to the park.

When we arrive, the evidence of the winter amusement is in the tracks. Evidence of kids shooting down slopes on plastic sleds. Evidence of boots imprinting the snow. Evidence of paws trotting along. I open the backdoor to my car, and Apacha attempts to get out. As he does, his back left leg gives out, and he whimpers. This has been happening a lot lately. Shepards and Huskies are known for hip dysplasia.  The cold gets to his joints. I don't know how old he is. My guess is eight or nine, my vet thinks nine or ten. I don't like to think about it. I bend to help him. He is stubborn like me, he doesn't want my assistance. He has his old man pride. He hops out and I hook him to his leash and we step toward the bench.

I notice how compact the snow is this week. My boot barely makes an impression. It's like walking on pavement, except the sound, the crunch of a million little particles under foot as I step. A woman is approaching in the opposite direction talking loudly into a head piece. Her dog is at her side, a cream lab mix. I watch Apacha's fur stiffen and create a little hump on his backside. His head dips, and aligns with the rest of his body. He looks like a predator creeping its prey. The woman hesitates. I assure her he is friendly despite his appearance.

She pauses to motion she is on the phone. Not that I care. I was not interested in conversation. We were getting away. I let Apacha sniff out her dog as she talks too loudly into her headset. I usher Apacha on. He was disinterested in the dog..

I unhook him once we get off the path. We run down the hill. The further we descend into the earth, the more powdery the snow becomes. I watch it as my boot kicks it up. It looks like powered sugar. I think back to Kentucky summer fairs and funnel cakes. I always asked for extra powdered sugar when standing at the vendor tent licking my lips and removing the lingering sweat. The middle-aged, overweight men would smile as they shook the silver container and made it snow in the summertime. I think of Kentucky summers. I think of short dresses and iced coffee and roasting in the sun until the heat is too much the body runs, almost naked and awkwardly dives into the swimming pool.

I'm thinking of all the powdered sugar my boot is producing with each step when I realize Apacha is not ahead of me, or next to me. I turn around and find he is about a hundred feet back sitting in the snow and looking to his horizon. He is taking it all in and worshiping this view ahead of him, the feeling of the cold snow throughout his winter coat he wears in every season. I call out to him, but he won't budge. He just sits and watches the white layer ascend up the hill into another treeline. He is a wise beast. A gentle beast. He is my beast. But he is not a beast at all.

He is domestically wild. He is wide-eyed and kind-hearted. Deep within his soul is a treasure.

He is always reminding me to stop, to slow down and appreciate the view. And I do that now, as I walk back to him, and dip my knee into the snow so my face is even with his face. There we sit and watch the seconds of the day move deeper into the hour.

We sit and meditate for a moment. Just a moment until he has had enough and runs ahead, wild again, and then shots his nose into the snow. He kicks up the snow with his face and rolls into it. He must be approaching perfection at this point. His body content and filled with snow that quickly freezes into his whiskers and gathers down his nose.

We approach the bench and it's as if he knows we are supposed to stop because again he sits right in front of the blue heart, and looks out to the highway, the slopes of the city, the white patches of quilt stitched together with the needles from the branches. I brush the snow off the corner of the bench, and pull my coat down over my butt and sit on the edge. My hands are too cold to write, so instead I take notes in my brain. I watch Apacha's breath exit his mouth, and escape into the sky. Miles away, the breath of a smokestack is doing the same thing, breathing out its exhaust and weaving into the finally bold blue sky, a sky that has been gray for days.

I hear something behind me, and Apacha does too. We both crook our heads and see a cross country skier heading our way. I grab Apacha's collar as he stands up. Sometimes he worries me with passerbys. He often thinks runners and bikers, and now cross country skiers are something to chase. He thinks they are moving swiftly and he should be able to catch them. He can't differentiate their movements. He doesn't know they are working their body no matter the elements. He doesn't know what is a game and what is not.

The cross country skier nods in my direction. I study his handsome, sturdy face and admire his spirit. He reminds me of a man who is far away in another country. A man I love. As he passes, he looks like an angel disappearing into the woods, with the sun on his back, mimicking a halo. He glides into the forest and dips away from our sight. He was the second person we saw on this venture, and would be the last. Usually this park is drenched with people, dog-walkers, joggers, bikers, exercisers, moms, dads and babysitters pushing strollers, actors practicing an upcoming production. But today, it's just me and Apacha, the lady that talked too loud and the angel skier. And we all moved in different directions.

We are always moving in different directions, it seems.

White.

It seemed as everything was white.

Except Apacha and I. His camouflaged coat of brown and gray and auburn matched the trunks and branches of the treeline. My red winter coat was abrasive and stuck out amongst the white. We headed out to our bench yesterday afternoon - at about two o'clock - and the hills were practically ours. There was about an inch of snow beneath my boots and his paws and more falling, quite quickly from the white sky. Everything seemed like a lightbulb - bright and luminous. The snow on the ground ascended and descended the hills of Frick and was eventually swallowed by the sky.

As we headed towards the bench, I observed the ground. It was virgin and untouched. Sure - many people had stepped there before, but on this day, at this hour - the footprints and paw prints we impacted into the ground - were the only footprints and paw prints on this layer of snow. We were stepping on something that had never been stepped on before.

I thought of this as we walked. I looked back to the hill we just walked down, and saw intersections of footprints weaving in and out of each other. All morning, people had been making their mark. It felt liberating knowing that I had marked something - if only for an hour - before the fresh falling snow of the hour - recovered my tracks.

Apacha is meant to be in the snow. The first thing he did when he got outside this morning was dig his nose into the snow, and then he crashed his body down onto it and rolled it throughout his coat. He is part Husky, part German Shepard, and looks like he belongs outside. I often feel bad that I keep him in a house warmed with heat all day, when just outside is the clamorous cold he yearns for. I think back to where he and I were this time last winter - in Palenque, Mexico, in the Mexican state of Chiapas. There it was humid and the sun seemed to lay lower and linger longer, causing Apacha to constantly pant and search out shady spots and cool pockets of dirt. I think about how selfish it is to keep him inside because I don't particularly like the winter.

But once we are outside, and I see his body move through the snow - his torso extend and lengthen, I appreciate the cold. I appreciate how it slaps you in the face and wakes you up in bites. I appreciate how nature mimics itself time and time again. As I observed the trees in Frick, the baron branches reminded me of a frozen stream with cracks in it. The branches looked like a frozen body of water after you throw a rock on it to test its thickness.

And there are so many cracks of branches to our right as we head to the bench. They repeat themselves over and over until the eye breathes them into one mass of forest.

Once we get to the bench, it is covered with an inch of snow, so we don't sit. I hunch in front of it with Apacha at my side and we look out to the horizon. The white is intercepted by the highway, where I observe how many white vehicles are moving back and forth. Why are most trucks white? These trucks pull trailers full of materials for us humans. I see a Walmart truck, a Coors Light truck and a Jim Beam truck and think of all the things we don't not need, but consume anyway. I think of all the shit moving around on highways, and then into stock rooms, and then onto selves and then into our homes. I think of all the things we fill ourselves with, and all the things we should, but sometimes don't - like an imprint on the fresh snow, or watching a dog fly through the park.

And then I think of the simplicity of it all. I think how nice it is to have a class that encourages me to get outside and write. And that I did - with a small purple notebook and a bright pink pen, I hunched my body weight to my legs and crouched in front of my bench with a blue heart and watched the cars move back and forth with my dog at my side. It felt good to sit still and lose the feeling in my legs because of the cold.

Caught.

Pittsburgh is a city where you can get lost in its woods. 

When I moved here in August for school, I immediately started looking for good hiking trails for my dog Apacha and me. I found I didn’t have to go more than a couple of miles from my house to be in the woods. 

My first trip to Frick Park occurred on my second day in Pittsburgh. As soon as I unpacked my car of belongings, I packed it back up with Apacha and my camera. We drove to Frick and started exploring its trails. Soon, this was a before sunset ritual with us. Apacha would start pawing at me or getting vocal (he is part Husky, part German Shepard with a little wolf) around six and I would throw a book into my bag and we would head out to Frick.

After a couple of explorations, I found a long wooden bench overlooking the Monongahela River with a string of bridges descending into the sky. It also overlooks I-376, a highway straight - against the curved river - and clustered with cars and semis with people moving from one place to another. In the middle of the bench is a blue spray-painted heart with a lightening bolt. Quickly, I deem this my bench. Apacha and I would hike around in the woods, taking lefts and rights deeper its realms. After a while we turn around to make our way back. On our way out, we stop at the bench to read. Apacha would sniff around the grass or rest at my feet, content in being outside with me. 

I like this bench because its surroundings represent Pittsburgh. Its view is hauntingly beautiful, a mix of highway construction, a river curved and topped with bridges, layers of houses on the hills and patches of forest all in one viewing. Behind the bench are big piles of gravel, either materials for an upcoming project, or just a place to store them to be sprinkled on the trials of Frick. The sight isn’t breathtaking. 

It’s real. It is a reminder of industry in the city, a nod to something sacred and something raw. This bench, in this spot is evidence of man within nature, that we are constantly obstructing it because we are in awe of it and want to be in the midst of it.

Today is the thirteenth of January, and it is our first visit back to the bench since the New Year. Apacha and I leave the house around two, and as we head out, my roommate Maggie reminds me that it is supposed to rain around three. I grab my raincoat, and Apacha and I hop in the car. As soon as we get to Frick, the whole sky turns from white to grey. We don’t seem to mind. A plethora of people are exiting the park as we enter. 

Apacha and I step off the paved path and I unhook his blue leash from his collar. 
Together, we run down a green grassy hill. Apacha runs ahead, his body turns wild when he runs and he looks like a wolf missing from his pack. I stop and watch his body extend and tighten, extend and tighten. His gait is beautiful and even after all this time together, I am constantly in awe of his beauty. He realizes I am behind and runs back toward me, his long tongue too big for his mouth and it hangs and flops from the 
side of his jaw. 

We make our own path alongside the tree line, and every so often he sets off into the woods to chase after something. He always returns to me looking satisfied with the chase. We are nearing the bench when I hear the rain, but do not yet feel it on my skin. I look around and see little drips hitting the trees, and soon after I feel it on my face. It is refreshing. The whole weekend was spent inside a loud restaurant bring customers fancy food and twelve dollar cocktails. The rain displaces me from that scene and meditates me into this moment. I look up at the sky, and the grey has turned deeper and the clouds 
have become one. 

As soon as we get to the bench, the rain changes from a drip to a hard beady descent. I pull the hood of my raincoat over my head and zip it up all the way to my lips. I am shielded and the sound of rain hitting my hood and the trees and the earth is lovely, an afternoon chorus of water falling from the sky. I sit my body down in the middle of the bench, so my back lines up with the blue heart and I close my eyes and take in the evidence of the rain. Apacha ventures off behind me and sniffs around the gravel piles. When I open my eyes the cars on I-376 are speeding in different directions, some going west, some going east. 

It feels nice to be sitting still as people move all around. It feels good to feel the wet cold rain on my face. 

After a couple of minutes of sitting, a guy on a mountain bike pulls up behind me and stops and plants his feet on the ground. I don’t think he sees me as he rolls tobacco paper with his two pointer finger and thumbs and then attempts to light his joint in the midst of the rain and wind. I don’t want to discourage him so I look away. But Apacha approaches him to sniff him out. The biker has red ear buds in, and he takes one out to talk to my dog. I turn again and we lock eyes and I smile to tell him I don’t care what he is smoking. 

I scare him off anyway, at least a couple hundred feet off. He moves himself and his bike further into the woods and again attempts to work his lighter. The elements are giving him a hard time. I take one last look at the view between the baron trees, naked with their branches waving with the wind. I say goodbye to my bench, and tell it I will return within the week. 

Apacha runs behind me as I walk quickly into the wind and rain. I stop and wait for him, and bend down to pet his wet face and look into his prehistoric yellow eyes. He sniffs around my nose, and sits down on the earth and for a moment we are just a girl and a dog caught in the rain.