Notes in my pack.
What if?
That’s a question I ask myself every time I turn on my beacon. What if. What if I don’t come back?
I do my best to ski safely. I pick my partners mindfully, I read the reports, keep track of the entire year of snowpack, select my routes to minimize exposure, select mostly low-angle, no-probability terrain, wear an avy pack, etc. One day recently it hit me hard and I asked the question as I was making my gear checklist for a bigger line I was skiing the next day. What if?
That’s when I wrote the notes.
I had just a mini spiral notebook I bought at the grocery store and a pencil—once a math teacher, always a math teacher. There seems something so impermanent about pencil, but old habits…
I started with my husband. Then my kids, my parents, brother, and then I wrote to about three friends. I told them what they meant to me in the past tense. How much I loved them. I didn’t say I was sorry. Maybe I should add that.
I tucked the notes into the little pocket in my pack with my snow study tools. I went skiing. Obviously, I came home.
I didn’t take them out of my pack. It was late, and I was tired.
I was out again last week alone, breaking trail. Lots of time to think, meditate, on all things. Lots of time to ask questions, like, “what if?”
I’ve left the notes in my pack. Not just because I’m lazy and forgot. Not even because of their original purpose.
The notes are in my pack to remind me to think about those people before I drop in.
