Right shoulder, snow,

Left shoulder, sky.

 I am tumbling through a world of icy sensation.

 No thought exists here, no form of mental concentration,

Only activation of the senses:

the alternate views of bright white and bright blue;

the sound and feeling of my body playing contact with the ski hill.

Above, they are still cheering when I come to an aggressive halt.

Eager to live in glory a few moments longer, I stand on one knee and stretch my arms into a high victory-v.

The crowd goes wild.

I hate the snow. And the cold. My fingers still remember those cold nights leading up to my frostbite. There may have been a time when Winter and I could have been friends, but not since then.

The outside thermometer hoovers at around 23.1 degrees. My pants are still dirty from our last expedition and I suddenly regret choosing sledding for my bi-weekly activity. The hesitation in my stomach lingers and expands until I am completely consumed by fear.

Somewhere along the way Jack reminds us not to do anything that will land us in the hospital to which we all respond that the ER was just down the hill anyway. The ramp is finished just in time for my third run.

The hill is steep.

 Brakey agrees to hold the board still while I brace myself. I cross my legs Indian-style and grip the left foot hold like reins. "Ready, set." and by "go" I was already gone.

It was Jack Lee's idea. He's the type of person to backflip on the tightrope between adventure and death, loving every minute of it. We were the types to go along with it because it was the sort of thing people who hang out with Jack Lee do. I, meanwhile, had had an idea of my own and as everyone else got out the shovels to start on the jump ramp, I reached for the snowboard.

Around me the sound of board slicing through ice drowns out the cheers of my friends.

 I can't focus on anything besides the ramp.

 Internally I feel some strange mixture of apprehension and excitement.

This moment has the potential to go painfully wrong.

From higher up I struggle to see the white ramp carved into the white hill but seconds later when I am an angel's breath away, it comes into shocking clarity.

I need my travel journals the way some people need their smartphones:

 As personal reminders of where I've been, and what I've done.

But, ironically, they often cause my memory to work in fits and starts.

When I travel with journals, I find myself constantly searching for how to translate those memories into phrases rather than enjoying the moment up font. Consequently the moment often fades too quickly, and I am left to live vicariously through journals and photos.

That night I return to my cabin and write my longest entry on record:

4 single-spaced, tightly scribbled pages.

 Never before had I so completely disregarded the future, so thoroughly savored the present that I could write exhaustively about the moment at hand. Who knew the art of forgetting has the ability to paint memories?

The strong, sharp wind divorces me from the snowboard, and I am left alone in its weightless grip.

Airborne, we call it.

Beneath me, the board bounces away on invisible tides of snow. Eventually the air stops carrying and turns me over to gravity.

I hit the ground and start rolling.

Right shoulder, snow, 

Left shoulder, sky.