24

Glenn picks me up from group, a jacket and hiking boots on the passenger seat.

“Up for a stroll?” he asks.

I put on the boots while he drives, unsure why I need such footwear for a “stroll.” He steers his truck farther and farther up the canyon, cutting through the Wasatch Mountains. This is no little saunter he has in mind.

When he pulls off at a small, unpaved parking lot on the side of the winding canyon road, he points to a steep trail disappearing into the still-naked trees. As the mountain rises away from us, the snowpack deepens.

“I don’t think I can do that,” I say. It’s been more than a year since I’ve worked out more than the pathetic knee bends and arm lifts with two-pound weights that Terry the Torturer forced on me.

Glenn hops out of the truck, pulling on his work jacket.

“You can.”

He climbs ahead of me, leading me through a trail that I have serious doubts about being an actual trail because we have to step over boulders and under low-hanging branches every few paces. The trail gradually steepens, the snow slowly thickening on the ground, my compression garments squeezing my knees.

I catch my breath against the skinny white trunk of a quaking aspen. When Glenn doesn’t stop, I follow in his footsteps, sunk deep into the snow now, making every forward movement an exhausting routine of step, sink, pull out, repeat.

I’m beginning to think this is some style of corporal punishment for my mini temper tantrum last night, when Glenn finally stops. He waves me to a row of boulders overlooking the valley. I sit and exhale heavy white puffs into the thin air.

Glenn and I look out over the valley spread below us. Ant cars creep along the highway, and even though snow still blankets the mountains, the grass in the valley is gearing up for spring. A massive flock of seagulls rises from the valley like an avian tornado, twisting and turning north as one until the white specks fall in line to soar home.