Chapter 12: Awakening
"Wow! I've never been on this side of the mountain before. I'm not even sure which mountain this is," I said as we hiked the incline.
"Babe, you've lived here for how long, and never been up this mountain?" Amy asked.
"My whole life. Born and raised here and I've never been up this mountain. My dad used to take Greg & I camping up another mountain around here but I'm not even sure where that one is anymore. It's been a long time," I said, out of breath.
"Well, better late than never to find out, right?" she said.
"Yep, that's right," I huffed.
We were about halfway up the mountain and stopped to take a break. We were both sweating and out of breath, again. This seemed to be a common theme with Amy, I thought. My legs were sore in places I didn't know could be. I wasn't complaining, though. Any time with Amy was worth the pain. And despite it being February, it wasn't actually that cold, even this high up in elevation.
"How are you feeling, babe," Amy asked.
"I'm a little sore and my heart feels like its about to beat out of my chest, but I'm good otherwise," I replied, even more out of breath than before.
"Ok, well this is a good workout. Burns calories and conditions your muscles. My mom owns a hot yoga studio across town. We should go. What do you think," she asked.
I could hear both a rhetorical and apprehensive question in her voice.
"I've never done regular yoga, let alone hot yoga before. Do you think I'd be physically able to do it," I said, answering a question with a question.
"I think you'll do fine, babe. It's not intense. It's just a heated room doing weird poses to stretch your muscles and gain flexibility. See, the whole point of yoga is to stretch muscles you didn't know were there. If you never stretch you could end up hunched over later in life and develop joint and muscle issues. You'd be stiff all the time," she explained.
"Oh, ok. Thank you for the clarification. I was under the impression people were eating hot yogurt, and that's nasty," I said, laughing at my own joke.
"Ha ha, funny," she said, giving a sarcastic fake laugh, "No, silly."
"I'll tell you one thing, though. I am stiff and will help you stretch," I joked. She laughed and glanced back at me with a playful, sexy look and giggled. That one hit a chord.
As we finally neared the top of the mountain, I noticed a few familiar looking trees. I still had no idea where we were and these white firs and Rocky Mountain maples were native to the area so they grow everywhere. The higher we climbed, the more out of breath I became. I had never walked this much, uphill, in my life. I was sweating profusely, in February! Amy walked in front of me. She had definitely done this before because she seemed to be hardly out of breath at all. Then again, she does yoga and works out. I do neither of those.
'I need to work on that,' I thought to myself.
I glanced up to see if I had fallen behind and saw I was quite far behind Amy. She had stopped at a ridge about 150 feet up the path from me. She looked down as I struggled, smiled, then looked up and pointed north. Looking up at her, I stopped and turned around. The snow caps on the northern mountains glistened in the late morning sun like the beads of sweat on Amy's skin. It made me want to leave the city and move up to the mountains. Finally, I caught up with her on the ridge.
"Wow, this is gorgeous." I said.
"Yep. I love coming up here. It's so peaceful," Amy said, gripping her backpack straps.
I wrapped my arm around her waist and kissed her on the cheek. She turned and kissed me.
"I have been thinking about something while hiking up here. Since I know your family, I'd like you to meet my mom. How does that sound," she asked.
We started up the mountain again and all I could think about then was the apprehension in her voice. She's a very confident woman and knows what she wants and isn't afraid to go after it, but this was different. She seemed almost scared to ask. She knows I'm not a social person and not great at meeting new people, but she had a point. Plus, I figured if we are going to develop this, then I need to open up and go with the flow more often. Broaden my horizons, if you will.
"Finally," I said, "we made it to the top. I thought I was going to die there for a minute."
She laughed and said, "Well, babe, the more we do this, the easier it will get. I'll give you an even better workout later too," winking at me.
"Oh, well, I'm holding to that," I said excitedly.
We sat down on a large boulder and snacked on a protein bar, which tasted like cardboard to me, and hydrated. Amy pointed to the west at a cabin about half a mile away. I didn't recognize the cabin at first. It was Donna's. We finished up our snacks and she led me towards the cabin. This time we walked together on flat ground and held hands.
"That's my mom's cabin. She's lived out here since I went to college. That was, gosh, let me think.." she said, raising her hand to her chin trying to do mental math.
"24 years, 22 maybe," I asked, with a chuckle.
"Yes, thank you. It's been about 24 years she's been living out here. She loves it," she said, looking up at me, squinting from the brightness of the reflection off the snow.
"So what's your mom like," I ask.
I could feel my heart beating faster the closer we walked to the cabin. Parts of it seemed familiar but don't all mountain cabins look the same or very similar? I wasn't sure why my heart was starting to race. I choked it up by having hiked up a 2000 foot tall mountain, and just needing a bit of rest.
"She's nice. She's not a crazy backwoods mountain lady who doesn't shower. You're thinking that, I can tell," she said with a giggle.
" I mentioned she owns a hot yoga studio on the other side of town. That wasn't totally true. She actually owns four. One in our home state of Pennsylvania, one in Florida close to her vacation home, the one on the other side of town and one in her cabin. That one is not advertised because it's for private clients," she continued, "oh and her name is Donna Bohen."
