The Big Sort: 9 - Snack break
Hakuba, Nagano
2020.08
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Summer 2020. At this point, I’d stopped disinfecting my groceries, but I carried around three types of disinfectant: spray, gel, wipes. I was double-masking on trains, stretching sleeves over my fingers to open bathroom doors, surveying for windows that I could open in any enclosed space. My fear of putting family at risk manifested in obsessive hand-washing and social anxiety. I turned down every social invitation except this one trek in Hakuba.
The ascent was tougher than I'd expected. The altitude exacerbated the pounding headache I had from my first morning without coffee in years. I asked to take a break when we were about a third of the way up.
We all had our own resting rituals.
I fueled up with a chocolate Soyjoy and put on a third layer. Mari munched on a peanut butter Yamazaki lunch pack sandwich and took out her drone. Gabrielle sipped on her Camelback that she carried like another limb. Sonia put her bag down with a thud. Under her ice cleats, camp burner stove, little satchets of tomato sauce, she took out a green ziplock of trail mix. But Ian outdid us all on the snack front. He held a thin red cloth pouch with yellow string wrapped around like a pocket-sized ancient scroll. Out of nowhere, he brought out a silver packet, and gently fished out a filet of salmon with collapsible titanium chopsticks.