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.