Up

I ran this morning. These runs in the hills have been a staple of my life for more than a decade—different hills, different friends, but the same reliable numbness as blood drains from every nonessential muscle. The same metallic taste that demarcates the edge of safety. The intimate dance of toes and roots that demands neither sight nor thought; I will not fall. I do not fall. Then people round the far corner walking four abreast on a trail for two and the step, hop, step into the bush, up and around is written in the air, no time or desire to excuse myself because here of all places the right of way is mine. Once I passed a girl walking with a heavy stick in this manner from behind. She screamed and spun around, stick whistling through my shadow—but I was gone.

When I was in high school I told myself if I finished a particular hill in under four minutes a particular someone would like me back. Then three and a half. Three. Eventually she was gone and forgotten; I broke two thirty and spent another minute retching in dizzy elation at the top. Now a nameless certainty arises the instant a slope comes into view. I am going up now.

And, sometimes, with the ring of an ice axe piercing through to the underlying rock I strike this certainty in unexpected places. More and more often now—like the snow is melting and winter has ended and the solid earth has promised to support my weight forever.