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.