Murderer in the basement

If and when I get skin cancer, I should remember today.

I skied at Pico. It was one of those classic spring days, the kind that feel like winter’s ransom. The sky was blue with a few swaths of cirrus; the sun and a south breeze warmed the air just enough that the snow’s surface softened, but not to the point of turning the snow to gloppy mashed potatoes. And the turns we made in the snow after the hour-plus hike up the mountain reminded me of why I love to ski. When I need a mental trip to my happy place, skiing Pico today could be it.

The only downside to the day — besides the hike up with skins stuck on our skis (which in my book isn’t a downside at all; the exercise is the reason we’re there) — was that I forgot to wear a baseball hat. I had slathered my face with SPF 45, but after five months of keeping my face hidden under hats, scarves, neck gators, and jacket collars, it’s hard to think of the sun as a bad thing.

As we started hiking at 12:30 p.m. — melanoma’s cocktail hour — I realized that we would be staring straight into the sun for the next hour and 15 minutes, never mind the rays reflecting off the bright snow. Well, I reasoned, it’s too nice to head home.

At least if I do get skin cancer — and I very much hope I don’t — I can look back over the past 40-plus years and remember days like today. Or the eight winters spent in Colorado where every weekend was spent skiing at a different resort. Or 12 years racing my bike in the west, sometimes spending up to six hours in the saddle as we rode across the desert, our sweat long ago having washed away whatever sunscreen we remembered to apply at dawn. Or even childhood summers spent in the town pool or swamping metal canoes in the lake at summer camp. Like a really bad hangover, at least it will have been fun that led me to that state.

If only we earned all our illnesses, rather than just contracting them for no good reason. We could rationally weigh the costs and benefits of our actions. Certainly some habits predispose us to illnesses. My weird Aunt Anne smoked eight packs a day and died of lung cancer.

But what about my friend Wendy? She contracted thyroid cancer several years ago, but as far as I know, she eats well and exercises regularly. She’s smart, funny and just goofy enough to be an interesting person. So it’s not like I can say, “Well, duh, if you didn’t so much bacon, then maybe you wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

Despite regular tests, her doctors, so far, have been unable to find the source of her cancer. So in a sense, she and her family — her husband and two kids — are living with the equivalent of a murderer in the basement. They know he’s there, but they just can’t find him, nor do they know how he got there. So they go about their daily lives trying not to think about him.

Maybe we all have murderers in our basements. And maybe I let mine in on a nice sunny day when my skis cut through the corn snow like butter.

But I try not to think about it. Why ruin a beautiful sunny spring day? Or even a dreary one for that matter.

And next time, I’ll remember my hat.