Letters to Jason: Do you ski backwards?
I was outside coming in from a walk with Nora, someone I have never seen before was walking over to one of the townhomes. I asked if he was moving in. He isn’t, he’s visiting a neighbor that’s lived there for two years that we’ve never seen. Though I think he is the guy with the cool car that I think you liked. They were packing up snowboarding stuff and he asked if I worded. I said no, I ski, which is much cooler anyways. They laughed. He asked if I skied backwards. I said no but my husband could. The past tense feels weird, I doubt he picked up on it at all. He just kept talking, about himself (your favorite ;)), and what he knew about people who skied backwards. That’s kind of the way the world works. He’s just talking. Shooting the shit. But me, my world stoped just for a moment. I thought about you skiing backwards. All the times I watched you bomb down the mountain, smiling back at me. Spinning around on the tip of your ski’s. Surprisingly I don’t think I ever watched you fall when you were doing that. Anytime we’d ski an easy run to get from here to there you would always ski backwards. The mountain was your playground. I remember when you skied backwards to film me and Megan in our in-sync skier girl video, with the bright retro spring outfits. The numbers of takes, you giggling in background. You were our videographer. Counting out-loud to help us keep cadence. We couldn’t have done it without you. You were so into it too. You edited an adorable video at the end of the day, with music, speed up, slow down. We called it Synchronized Gaper Skiing. It was a beautiful spring day. Austin and Samantha were with us, my parents too. You were happy. We all were happy. Life was good. I dreamed this would be what we’d be doing forever.
The neighbor didn’t know when he simply asked a silly question about skiing backwards, the impact would have on me. He said have a great day. I half smile and nod. He doesn’t know it, but a great day is simply just learning to survive in a world without you.
