Fifteen Minutes Was All It Took

July second. The outdoor skills workshop ended around noon. Simone and I were standing in the parking lot eating the granola bars we had been saving for three hours, and she said the trailhead is literally right there, and I said I know, and we both looked at our shoes, which were adequate, and that was the entire decision-making process.

We went the following Saturday. I want to be specific about the fact that we did not plan to go, we planned to look at the map, which is different. The map led to a conversation about elevation, which led to me writing the trailhead name in my notes app at eleven on a Tuesday, which led to Simone texting me Thursday morning just the word Saturday with a question mark, which led to us standing at the trailhead at nine forty-five in July heat that had not yet decided to be July heat. The trail is narrow enough that you have to walk in a line most of the way, which means you end up talking to the back of someone's head, which turns out to be a good way to say things you might otherwise edit.

Somewhere in the middle of not having a plan.

We came out onto a ridge about two thirds of the way up and the city was just sitting there in the haze below us and Simone put her hand over her eyes and neither of us said anything for a minute. A man with a dog offered to take a picture. We said yes. He handed the phone back and the three of us looked at the screen and he said nice and walked on. He was right.

The outdoor skills workshop taught me how to read a topographic line and what to do if the weather changes and which knot to use for what purpose. The trail taught me that I have been spending a lot of Saturdays inside for reasons I cannot now fully reconstruct. That is not a complaint. It is just something the ridge said on the way back down, and I am writing it here three days later because that is apparently how long it takes me to know what I think.