2014
Believe it or not, I was once in medical school to be a clinical speech pathologist. However, two years into the program, I’d maxed out my college loans. That’s what happens when one ambitiously pursues two degrees in the ever-popular, ever-profitable field of opera only to end up resenting it for making life even more unstable and psychologically unsettled than the previous military childhood. A wanderlust sans lust.
Med school was my way of refusing to teach once I had gotten out of opera. They say, “those who can’t do, teach.” I could still do. I just didn’t want to anymore. It made me miserable.
Of course I shouldn’t fail to mention that this also took place around the same time I went through a life-altering end to a relationship – the reason I’d moved to this strange planet called Utah to begin with. Life happens in threes: a career cut short, a prestigious degree cut short, and a sad affair cut short.
I fled to live with my best friend to find my footing. He lived in a town called Saratoga Springs. Having picked up running, I’d run through this strange town where I’d pass half a dozen Mormon churches in a 2 mile radius and get heckled by teenagers on bikes dressed in black… more than slightly making me feel I was living on the set of The Children of the Corn.
Aside from running, I began finally writing my book and exploring my career options with a number of professionals and mentors to make sure that I wouldn’t be fluttering about until I found the right one. I was no longer young and I didn’t have the luxury of time. The previous year had reinforced the power and finiteness of time. I refused to waste time, my passion, or my heart ever again. I got my life back in threes.
All of these things led to some very big changes. I’d lost a lot of weight (again), decided to go into Human Resources, and I got a seasonal internship at the Deer Valley Ski Resort. For those outside the world of skiing, this place is the top ranked ski resort in the country when it comes to luxury mountain resorts. Driving the office Cadillac, dining on food flown in from exotic locations, and spotting top celebrities were regular occurrences.
I went into this experience excited at the prospect of such an illustrious notch on my belt. A few weeks into the experience, my bryanisms (as my friends so delicately put it) kicked in and changed all of that. Someone from the events team came to my office looking for some help to fill in for some last minute volunteers to fill in for a presentation by staff that had canceled at the last minute. Eager and green to the company, I was the first to volunteer.
I was moved quickly to a room where older ladies dressed me in a famous Deer Valley green ski instructor uniform, polka-dotted scarf, crazy-looking winter hat, fat mittens two sizes too big, and giant ski goggles. The uniform was so small I felt my belly out like green mush being squeezed from a play-doh factory. It was still summer so it felt a bit…off. I was instructed to go out with a few of the other ski instructors to give a presentation on how to ski, giving some pointers and what not.
“But I don’t know how to ski,” I whined.
A sweet older lady comforted me in vain, “Everyone knows basically how to ski. Just follow the lead of the others and roll with it.”
I followed the other overly-dressed instructors into the meeting room. I froze in confusion. The room was packed with Native Americans. A woman was speaking in Navajo to the crowd as we were coming out. The only word I could understand was “ski.” Did these people even ski? They were on walkers and canes and live in the desert of New Mexico.
We were then introduced in English as a group of instructors who were going to teach them the basics of skiing. One taught the basics of acceleration and deceleration by using the terms “French fries” and “pizza slice” for the positions to hold your skis while going down the mountain. The next person taught how to turn sharply back and forth, followed by someone teaching how to use the ski lift. By the time they came to me, I was a total loss for words. Everything that I could at least fake was already taken. (The 100 year old Navajo woman who spoke no English in a wheel chair now knew how to do moguls, spring and ski backwards, and do a flip off of a cliff. She now knew more than I. Good for her… damn it.)
Fending for myself, I did what only I could think to do, resort to my theater improve skills. I demonstrated to the crowd of elderly bored people how to, well, fall. I fell to the floor like an old Pentecostal lady being physically filled with the spirit. A heard gasping as I began to reminisce about my fall down a Breckenridge slope in middle school where I crashed myself in order to avoid a double black diamond cliff – which led me to fake an injury so that I could ride the lift down (because I was too scared to ski anymore) and ultimately ended in an ER where they x-rayed me and were afraid I’d swallowed my cross necklace when actually it had just broken off and was under my body that had been duct taped to a red rescue sled. They didn’t find it until they had unwrapped me to begin exploring options for surgery.
I was shaken from my memory with a room filled with laughter. Standing up to find these older people laughing so hard they had tears in their eyes, I looked around perplexed. One of the event managers signaled for me to keep going. They were loving it.
“There are only three things I know about skiing,” I said, “The first one is how to crash gracefully.” A Navajo lady with a beautiful smile came up and stood next to me and began interpreting for me in Navajo. I didn’t realize most of them couldn’t understand me. No wonder they looked so dazed with the previous real ski instructors.
“And this is how you get up,” I continued. I sat on the floor and was handed a pair of ski poles and pushed myself up off the floor awkwardly like drunken Bambi. The pole tips couldn’t stick to the hardwood floors so they slipped and left me to free fall ass first back the Bambi way I came up. They laughed hysterically.
I hopped up and said short of breath, “so when you’ve fallen and you’ve said, ‘screw this,’ you walk back up the mountain and ride the lift back down.” I then demonstrate how to hike sideways up the mountain with skis on as the translator followed my lead.
After I stopped my awkward demonstration, and they stopped laughing so loud, I continued. “The second thing I know for sure about skiing is that skiing is meant to make you look cool.” Totally faking it, I began to strut across the stage. Confidence fueled by their laughter, I started to dance harder and harder until I was ultimately twerking across the stage in skis with my poles bouncing above my head.
One particular older lady on the front row was laughing so hard that her wig was falling off her head and half hanging off of her face. I jumped down and grabbed her by her hands and pulled her to the front and made her twerk in skis with me. The room roared.
I hushed them. “Now the third thing is very very important and takes great skill and concentration.” I pause to look around the room. I don’t remember the last time I had such devoted attention. “Skiing is very important and vital for winter…” pausing for dramatic, silent affect, “flirting.” They looked on with confusion but anticipation at whatever the translator had just said. I think she was also confused.
I began walking across the stage primping like Bill Cosby’s dancing. I stopped half way across the stage, looked over my shoulder, pulled my ski goggles down below my eyes like something out of that 1980’s Tom Cruise movie and said the only thing I know in Navajo (which I’d learned when trying to learn Navajo in Milwaukee while writing a Native American children’s choir song, “Ayu ani nishnih, baby.” (I love you baby.) They all whooped in laugher and applause.
I finally see one of the few men in the audience actually laugh (they were quite reserved and dignified). I pull him up with me, dress him in my costume, and make him do what I just did. We strutted across the stage, side by side, stop half way across and look over the ski goggles and say, “Ayu Ani nishnih, baby.”
The crowd jumps to their feet applauding and laughing. I see what time it is. “Sorry everyone! I have to get back to work!” And I run off the stage.
By the end of the day, I was known to everyone by my new unofficial Native American name: Twerks with Skis.
[Stay tuned for the second part of this adventure that led me to the Navajo Nation itself.]
I Can't Take Me Anywhere 