the days that follow

I don't want to be up at 4:30AM making coffee.  I don't want to hike that trail. I don't want to be so in love with what I have learned is politely called a reactive dog. 

I don't want it to be July.

But most of all, I don't want to be on a 7-mile hike at the top of the canyon on a Sunday morning because I am too afraid to go back to Tanner.

What is there to say?  I was yelled at by a man, probably having his own bad day that had nothing to do with me.  I know, I was with Juneau, give him a couple of minutes you will find plenty of things to yell about.  

However, this man had no issue with Juneau or Ginger.  He was yelling at me. 

 Tanner, on the dog park side, is an off-leash trail every day of the week, all year long.  We go there just about every other day. Or I should say we did.  

This man decided I had let my dogs off-leash a hair too soon; a couple of feet from the arbitrary line he himself drew on the trail.  

"What makes you any different from anyone else!" he screamed repeatedly in my direction and then dramatically threw down the leashes of his 2 dogs.  

At first, I didn't even realize he was addressing me.  

There were at least 4 other dog owners with their off-leash dogs on the trail with us. My dogs were both at my feet.  And yet he was singling me out. 

Of course, knowing full well I hadn't done anything wrong I instantly began apologizing.

Most likely realizing he was actually in the wrong with me still apologizing, the angry man with his 2 dogs walked away.

I altered my route to avoid having to trail behind him the whole time but otherwise continued on our walk. We did have to pass him one more time on our way out; it was uneventful. 

Two other women who had seen it go down went out of their way to tell me how wrong he had been, laughing it off as a nutty guy. 

And I told BC you would be so proud of me I didn't even let it bother me. 

There is a space in my mind where monsters lay in wait.  

It did bother me.  It bothered me a lot.  

Finally, I had to admit I was afraid to go back.  With support from a few friends, I gathered my nerve and three days later returned with my dogs. Successfully twice saw and passed the angry little man. Problem solved. 

Only it's not. 

It's July and I now run the outside trail from 2300 to Wasatch and back. Dogless and alone as the bikers clip by me. Sometimes I startle so badly I have to stop to calm down. 

I go out in the heat on the heavily exposed blacktop walking the biggest hills, running the small ones. 

I look down at the dogs in the dog park and wonder 

what the hell I am so afraid of? But it changes nothing.

The canyon is better.  The trails yawn and stretch.  The dogs run free.  When you are alone in the city it is seen as a weakness. In the mountains, it is a strength.  

I didn't want to hike Dog Lake this morning.  It's not a trail I love but I owed the dogs something.  

Driving in the dark looking for deer stepping out from the trees I followed the canyon road to the end.  

Alone in a dark parking lot.  Alone on a dark trail.  Alone when the sun splits the trees. And alone at a beautiful mountain lake. 

Walking among the trees pockets of hidden snow, breathe the breath of winter over the smell of a distant wildfire.  The world is pine and dust nothing else even exists. 

All of it is for this dog who can't tell us about his past.  Who can't explain why some things scare him so badly while other things don't. 

I suppose the same could be said of me.