It is the last day of March, and I can’t quite believe that spring is already in full swing. The warmth feels almost misplaced—so much so that, heading into my second ski trip of the year, the running joke is that we might as well be water skiing.
And in truth, Mammoth Mountain looks as if it is surrendering. There are bald patches on the slopes, and the surrounding hills are nearly stripped of snow. We begin on frozen terrain that softens quickly into slush. For the first time in my life, I am among the very first to board the lift. When I step off, a pristine slope stretches out before me—untouched, no tracks yet written into it.
It takes time to adjust: the cautious negotiation of ice, the sudden heaviness of slush, the uneven rhythm of slushy moguls. It is not the best skiing I’ve ever had. But the sun is bright, the sky is clear, and before long I am shedding layers, skiing in a T-shirt as if it were late spring rather than the end of winter.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know there will be a cost. No amount of sunscreen will fully protect me. And there is another, more immediate consequence—I have no jacket to shield me if I fall. When I try to avoid someone who slips off the chairlift just ahead of me and doesn’t have time to move, I end up skinning my elbow.
Still, I keep going. I ski until the very end.
All the while, I am negotiating with myself—what I should and should not do. I stay cautious, avoiding lifts that feel beyond my comfort, yet pushing that boundary just slightly. The sky is streaked with airplane trails that blur as the hours pass. People laugh and glide by in bathing suits. Spring is unmistakably in the air.
And I keep asking myself: what is it that I love so much about skiing?
Perhaps it is this—the necessity of presence. As you descend, you must empty your mind of everything except the next turn. I imagine that skilled skiers no longer think about it. But I do. For me, each turn demands attention, and in that narrow focus, everything else falls away.
This time, though, the sound of snow beneath my skis unsettles me. The brittle scrape of ice reminds me how uncertain my footing is. But I keep going. I keep trying.
And then, inevitably, there is a final lift. A final run. And just like that, the 2026 ski season is over. The skis will be packed away until next year.
What lingers, though, is not just the skiing.
It is the people.
I realize, seeing the ski club again, how many different lives intersect in this one shared space—different backgrounds, cultures, religions. The group is strikingly diverse. There are people from Colombia, Ecuador, Croatia, South Africa, and many other places. We even have enough for a minyan on the bus, with my small challah and a can of Moscato. And perhaps that is the quiet miracle of it—how something as simple as skiing can unite us.
There is, I notice, a certain similarity in how many of us think politically. But it is not that which defines us here. It is the shared movement down the mountain.
Because this trip happens earlier in the season, we still have daylight on the drive to and from Mammoth. The sunsets are extraordinary—deep orange light spreading across the horizon. On the way back, I photograph the sun as it slips behind the mountains, pausing just long enough to transform everything it touches.
At the same time, I find myself immersed in an audiobook—Piccola Sicilia. I had meant to read it, but instead I listen, hour after hour, drawn into its nearly 21-hour span. It takes me back to World War II, into a world that feels both distant and intimately familiar.
I grew up with stories of that time. Half of my family was lost in the Holocaust. For me, it is not history—it is inheritance. The book offers a different lens, one not rooted in the former Soviet Union but in the experience of a Jewish family in Tunisia, in North Africa. And yet, it is still my story. A story of suffering, displacement, and the fragile act of finding one’s way again.
It moves me deeply.
I have not felt this absorbed since I read Erich Maria Remarque as a teenager, unable to put his books down. Now, I listen whenever I can, carried by the narrative until it ends, and even then, I remain inside it.
And from there, my thoughts shift—inevitably—to the present.
War again.
Suffering again.
No matter who stands on which side, the reality remains: people are dying. There are bombs, sirens, hurried runs to shelters. There are interrupted lives, abandoned plans, futures that never arrive. There are endings that come far too soon.
And there is no return to what was.
Tomorrow is Passover, the first Seder. We will sit together and tell, once again, the story of leaving Egypt. And I find myself hoping—not just out of tradition, but out of need—that we, too, will emerge from danger, from war, from suffering, as those generations once did. That there is still a path forward, even if it is lined with thorns.
And yet, in the midst of all this, something unexpected unsettles me on a more personal level.
A good friend of mine turned 60 last weekend. I wanted to write something for him. But I couldn’t.
It wasn’t just that I didn’t have the time. It was as if the ability itself had left me. The words would not come. The same ease I once had—sitting down and writing a poem within an hour—was gone.
And that frightened me.
I remember a patient from years ago who struggled with something similar. Once sharp, accomplished, capable—he was deeply troubled by the sudden loss of what had once come naturally. At the time, I understood it intellectually.
Now I understand it personally.
I feel as though the words have left me. As though they exist somewhere just beyond reach, no longer responsive when I call for them. And I am afraid—afraid that something in my mind has changed in a way that may not fully reverse.
I know it is not simply “chemotherapy brain.”
I spoke about this with my second oncologist. Within minutes, I was lost—genes, mutations, pathways, a cascade of terminology I could not hold onto. I turned to ChatGPT to transcribe the conversation, because I felt as though I were drowning in it.
It is a strange sensation—to feel that understanding is within reach, that you can almost grasp what is happening, and yet not quite hold it.
I know what I need to do. Reevaluate, reorganize, focus on healing. I know the steps.
But I am exhausted.
The weight of it all presses down in a way that feels constant, unrelenting. And for the first time, I am not entirely certain how long I can continue to carry it.