Paying Attention - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 25

often felt in the past when preparing to begin a day of skiing.
I stopped and listened to the wind whining through guy ropes
and the snow scratching along the side of the tent as it was
blown along the ground in drifts. I closed my eyes and made a
mental effort to remember what it is like to ski into that wind
all day; to feel numb and exhausted, to feel the pressure of all
the miles yet to cover. I hoped this imagined reconstruction
would limit the shock when I was finally out there for real.
Others waiting at the basecamp vented their restive nerves
by climbing nearby peaks, kite-skiing along the runway or
exploring local ranges but I deliberately shied away from doing
the same. My reasons were partly practical - I didn't want to
risk hurting myself in the days immediately before departure
- but there was another less easily explained logic. I felt as if
I had focused myself on the journey ahead to the point that
it obscured all else; as if I didn't have the mental capacity to
think about anything but what lay ahead. Waiting felt like I
had freeze-framed myself; a stasis that would only thaw once I
was on my way. I had mentally hibernated.
A full fourteen days after I should have started my expedition
I heard footsteps approaching my tent. It was Steve. Finally, it
was my turn to leave Union Glacier.
I expected the news to fill me with excitement and adrenalin
but as I gathered together the last of my belongings and took
down my tent I felt the same taut numbness that had gradually
enveloped me since leaving the UK. I dragged my sledges, one
at a time, over to the small ski plane that was to fly me across
Antarctica to my start point.
The narrow but bulky blue sledges that had seemed so large
and ungainly next to my tent now appeared pathetically tiny