pleasing and anxious; the dried image past

After four or 5 hours, we reached the tree line that we only glimpsed and imagined from the road. Here we paused briefly to share one of the half sandwiches we had prepared hastily in the car. I was winded and my mouth dry, but I mustered this in between drawn breaths: 'best ham and butter I've ever had'.

We were exhausted. The peak we had spotted from the highway now looked even further up and away, and without having to mention, I knew we shared the urge to retreat. We drank what was left in our water bottles, closed and repacked our bags.
The rest of the hike was difficult, but our legs were warm with blood and we kept going, step, step stepstetpsptoespotstep. We didn't speak much there, on the bare rock above the trees. We hiked; climbed, heads down, like drooped house plants left unwatered. I heard her voice, and I ached to looked in the direction of her pointing finger. Down in the valley was a deer, head up, fixed photographed and unmoving. How she spotted it, I don't know, and how it seemed to have heard her voice is a mystery. After a few ponderous instants, it sprang to life, bounding out across field and into woods, woods as paused and still as it had been a moment ago. She looked back and gestured upward. We kept walking.

The summit was a thrill, the view was sublime, but the feeling of walking, and the feeling of standing, and the looking and the breathing were truly a wonder. I was lacking breath from gaining altitude; she again looked over at me. I looked back, and our struggled feet brought us together and we held hands.

On top of the mountain we felt like jumping.









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