Consulting the Doozeometer

Mixed emotions at the end of the 2015-16 season with the Sugarbush Ski & Ride School.

Many years ago, for purposes of modern science, together with some of my dearest guests and favorite ski companions, I created the Doozeometer Scale. The Doozeometer measures the extent to which something is a "doozy" and it proves very useful when in need of perspective.

I have very vivid memories of a particular afternoon in the spring of 2016 at Sugarbush, sitting over a beer with trusted members of my management team at the end of the season, feeling like we’d just competed in one of those cross country ski races where all of the athletes collapse and are sprawled out on the ground in a heap after crossing the finish line. The winter of 2015-16 was the worst season for snow that any of us could remember in a way that was quite stunning - it was difficult in every respect, but the staff at Sugarbush inspired us every day and I remain proud of the work we all did and think back fondly on that time we had together. Still, as challenging as the 15-16 season was, the particular details that made it so exceptionally difficult did fall into the class of issues one could reasonably have expected in a business dependent upon snowfall. I'd give that season a 9 out of 10 on the Doozeometer. This season just completed, 2020-21, was challenging in ways that were very different.

There are far too many pundits, prognosticators, philosophers, and pedagogues filling the airwaves in this day and age, and I have no interest in wasting anyone’s time drawing big picture conclusions about ‘what we learned in the pandemic ski season’. I’m too psychologically tired for that and finding the proper perspective will take time; lots of time. Still, what’s been cracking me up lately as I look back and consider is that there seem to have been equal numbers of incidents, aspects, and anecdotes that leave me shaking my head, raising an eyebrow and saying “ooph”, and those that have me closing my eyes for a moment, nodding slowly and say “ahhh”. Ooph and Ahhh are like the yin and yang of expression by exhalation.

Speaking of psychological effort, I was aware throughout this past season and still am now that the moments of anxiety, discomfort, disgust, loss of faith in humanity – the “ooph” moments – felt as though they overwhelmed the good, faith-inducing ones – the ahhhs. Not letting the fewer, negative experiences tip the balance of how we were all feeling about the season took effort, certainly, but it also required that we all be far more deliberate in taking the time to focus on what was good, caring, welcome, beautiful and genuinely fun. There may have been moments where looking at the view, ‘stopping to smell the roses’ as it were, felt contrived or forced, but this year I am confident that my friends, colleagues, and guests appreciated all that our time together in the mountains provided. This year more than ever, skiing was a truly joyful way to spend our time. Ahhhhhh.

Somehow, by hook or by crook, I generally had a busy season and by some miracle managed to remain healthy throughout. In November and occasionally throughout the season, I held my breath a bit over whether anyone could or should come skiing at all – ooph. Then there were plenty of moments where I was fortunate to spend my time with wonderful people whose concern for all of our collective safety and well-being allowed me to literally and figuratively breathe easily - ahhh. And when we set off down the mountain, every time we set off, the skiing felt normal in a way that was meaningfully reassuring and for which I remain truly and immensely grateful. For that reason, for the balance of ooph and ahhh, I rate the 20-21 season a 9 out of 10 on the Doozeometer. A true 10 would be tough to imagine and I hope I never see one.

What’s my plan for the shoulder season? Simple. Breathe in, breathe out. Put my feet up. Clear my mind on my beloved bicycle. Go for a hike. Reconnect safely with friends and family without fear. Day-dream a bit about the post-pandemic world. That sure was a doozy. Ooph, we made it. Ahhh, we made it. Thank Goodness. Hopefully, we won't need to bust out the Doozeometer for the next season.

The Value of a Good Roast Chicken

The start of another stunning day at Aspen Highlands

It’s getting cold outside; I’m quite worn from a very busy few weeks and a long winter; and I really would like a warm, crispy roast chicken for dinner. With some roasted vegetables. And a glass of delicious and decidedly un-snobby red wine; the kind of French red that goes well with a roast chicken without offending anyone. Nothing fancy schmancy, no razzmatazz, just a good roast chicken dinner. I am a bit of a Francophile, it’s food for l’esprit and the body, and my mouth waters just thinking of it.

If I were to have a quiet conversation with any ‘of-the-moment’ celebrity chefs who happen to be French and classically trained, I’d ask them what dish they yearn for, what food they reach for when they really just need a decent meal to warm the spirit. My firmly held belief is that the best French chefs, any of them worth their weight in sel de mer, would want to curl up in the corner of an old village bistro or their grandmother’s kitchen and have a roast chicken. No noise; no fanfare; no foams or towers; definitely no molecular gastronomy; just a roast chicken. Of course, the meal I have in my mind’s eye is a mere roast chicken in the same way that the Dalai Lama is a “mere monk”, as he likes to joke. There is nothing easy about preparing a great roast chicken, and there are far too many mediocre or high-falutin’ ones in the world. Difficult doesn’t mean complex, simple doesn’t mean easy, and the only result that counts is whether the roast can ease the body and transport the mind to a happier place. And yes, in this way I am also talking about the craft of teaching skiing and snowboarding, and of doing it well. Bear with me, I’m getting a bit misty.

One of the odd dynamics of the corps of people who teach skiing and snowboarding for a living is that there are some among them, not an inconsequential number, who believe that they have achieved such a lofty status that they no longer have to teach beginners. It is true that those of us who have been teaching for a while and ski and ride at a certain level do tend to work with more proficient guests who have skiing and riding as an established part of their lives, but that doesn’t mean we don’t teach beginners. Or at least it shouldn’t; and I have a big chip on my shoulder about those pros who think it should.

The simple fact is that teaching beginners never fails to be rewarding. Every successful beginner lesson creates skiers and riders, and if we teach because we really do love our sports in a deep and meaningful way then this is the greatest result of what we do as instructors. Equally important to us as pros, beginner lessons are the very best window on the quality and content of our own teaching, and they are the ultimate test of our beliefs and understanding of how people move and learn. Make it happen for people on their first ever day skiing and riding, and you’ve shown your real mettle as a teacher.

To be clear, there are many instructors out there doing a fine job of working with their high-level guests who don’t agree with me about beginners, but I happily call them out on it and genuinely enjoy challenging them to make it happen for folks at the very beginning of their snow sports journey. Often those instructors hide behind being cool when I do this. Sometimes, they make excuses. Often they are too vanity-stricken and preoccupied with trying to become famous on social media as impressive skiers or riders for ten seconds at a time to understand the pertinent point in the first place. Occasionally they agree with me and then become nostalgic for the simple joy of teaching beginners, and that’s when I know that I am speaking with a truly great and dedicated pro, and one of my people. Yes, the pros who are my people are like the chefs who long for a great roast chicken. The idea of aligning the two may seem far-fetched, but I promise that the look on the faces of my instructor friends is the same as the great chefs, and so is their memory of the satisfaction that warms our hearts as a result.

I haven’t lived here in Aspen Snowmass long enough yet to have a local bistro where I can become a regular, slinking in late after a long day and in need of a good roast chicken and a glass of wine (oh how I do miss my friends at Chez Henri in Warren, VT). I need a bistro in my life, so that’ll have to happen when we return to normal. Thankfully, I was lucky enough this winter to work with a few wonderful people who had never skied before, and to share our sport with them in a way that opened the door to their own love of it and, hopefully, to a lifetime of skiing. I’m quite confident that those beginner lessons, those shared experiences, will turn out to have been the most joyous teaching moments for me this winter. Those lessons (and so many others) continue to serve as a vital reminder of why I love teaching skiing.

I enjoy nouvel cuisine as much as anyone; I certainly spend a great deal of time teaching people on Aspen Highlands’ legendary expert terrain; I do very much love coaching race athletes and training instructors; but it’s still a roast chicken in a warm bistro that I long for at the end of a long day and it’s the beginner lessons that keep me grounded and satisfied as a pro. That, and a real and a figurative glass of red wine and a warm fire, for my guests and for myself, keeps it all in perspective. And don’t even get me started on the value of a great soup à l’onion gratinée – pardon me, it must be time for dinner.

COVID-19, Ski Vacations, and The Kitchen Table

 

https://youtu.be/nuvcETMYcUg

“Not until you finish your homework.” “How’d the meeting go?” “You won’t believe what happened today?” “We should probably cook that broccoli tonight.”

And in a normal year, “Hey, honey, we really need to get our ski vacation figured out.”

In my mind’s eye, these conversations all take place at the kitchen table, the family inner sanctum. One parent is getting dinner ready and the other is helping with homework, feeding the toddler, maybe catching up on emails. Phones ring, plans are made, instructions given, priorities set, families reconnect, all around the kitchen table.

These kitchen table conversations also are how families plan ski vacations. Did we like where we went last year and should we go back? The so-and-so’s love being in their own condo in El Grande Western Resort for the holidays so should we talk to them and try some place new? Do the kids really need new boots, again? We really should get the winter clothes out of storage this weekend.

This year, in the age of COVID-19, those kitchen table conversations are very different. This year, it’s “Hey, honey, how do we really feel about traveling to ski this year?” Notably, it’s almost exclusively about how people feel about traveling to ski and ride.

Resorts all across the USA are rolling out operational protocols designed to keep guests safe while visiting their mountains during the pandemic. Lift capacity, lift reservations, line management, facility cleaning, face mask and social distancing requirements, food service modifications, group lesson programs – every phase of the resort experience is being adjusted to limit exposure. There are some differences in those details from place to place, but most resort plans are fundamentally similar. As I see it, however, in this environment there is no amount of operational detail that will help new or returning guests make the decision to travel and spend time in ski resorts this winter. As I’ve said, in my view it’s about how people feel about traveling to ski and ride.

Thankfully, how we feel about skiing and riding in the first place is the central reason that people make the trek to mountain towns during the winter months in the best of times. In the 2020-21 season, the way skiing and riding makes each of us feel represents one of the aspects of our normal, non-pandemic lives that we long for the most. In that way, skiing and riding, particularly as a family, simply has become more important, more evocative of what we’re missing.

Whether to travel at all is a decision each individual family must make on their own, based on their own comfort level. Still, if it helps, I do think there that are a few simple things that holiday-makers can do to ensure that their mountain vacations safely provide the sort of valued experience for which we are all longing. Planning in a little more detail and a bit further in advance will allow skiing and riding families to have safe holidays that will be the way we want and need them to feel.

To address this, I created the short informational video above that I hope will be a helpful for families trying to figure out how they can make their ski vacations easier, safer, and less stressful this winter. 

The mountains will be covered with snow this winter. The lifts will spin. The cold mountain air will invigorate us. Under our face coverings our cheeks will still be rosy and our big grins will still warm our hearts. When we’re skiing and riding, lost in the moments of exhilaration that can only come from the sports we love so much, we will momentarily be transported out of the everyday stresses of the world. During this winter of COVID-19, those moments will be all the more welcome for each of us, guests and staff alike.

I am looking forward to seeing my own guests and to meeting new ones this winter, and to making the most of our time skiing together. And if you need a hand while you’re at the kitchen table sorting through the details, just give me a call.

Maroon Bells in Aspen at the end of a beautiful autumn day

Directions to Carnegie Hall

A classic New England coastal salt marsh in summer, pronounced "sault mash".

Yesterday, I had several different and very specific alpine ski technique details in mind throughout the day. This does violate a deeply held conviction of mine that less information and a narrower focus is vastly more effective learning, better training than more and broader, but I somehow muddled through it. The various aspects of skiing that I was working through yesterday were overwhelmingly centered on the functional relationships of various body parts and that functionality’s effect on efficiency, strength and performance. Developing and maintaining that sort of functional awareness, particularly when it relates to specific muscle groups, requires a lot of repetition and few distractions. Frankly, I do enjoy that sort of training, as it’s rare for me to have the opportunity for several prolonged, uninterrupted hours of focus.

Just to be clear, yesterday I was doing landscaping. Not skiing.

One of the training opportunities I’ve always enjoyed about my “summer winter” teaching and coaching skiing in Wanaka, New Zealand is that I do not personally receive much coaching. Yes, I realize that sounds odd but I promise it’s not a non-sequitur. The lack of training received combined with the large volume of teaching hours with a great variety of people who are intermediate and beginner-level skiers provides an enormous volume of repetition of slower-moving ski turns in which fundamental concepts remain front-and-center of my mind and my awareness. I admit it, I am a terrible multi-tasker, but I can be aware of my core muscles winding up and unwinding from turn to turn, for example, while maintaining a singular focus on whatever piece of the skiing puzzle is at the center of my guests’ and my time together. My antipodean “summer winters” have been, in that odd sort of way, like my own ski teaching version of staying after basketball practice to shoot free throws. Thousands of them.

Quite obviously, in the Age of COVID, I am not in New Zealand. I am not on snow, I’ve had to somehow cobble together a living this “summer summer” in a strange new place, far from my wonderful Wanaka friends, and with an unsettling amount of uncertainty about the future. But I do wonder: will the actual absence of skiing and, frankly, the absence of ski-focused conversation actually benefit my skiing awareness in some way? The truth is, I know it will, even if it’s not as much fun as actually teaching skiing.

A major component of our instructor certification exams involves being assessed on “teaching for transfer”, which is instructor-speak for finding common ground between a guest’s non-skiing experiences and whatever specific detail of their skiing we’d like to improve or have as a focus for our time together with them. For one teaching component of their instructor exams, candidates are given scenarios describing a particular hypothetical guest, a description of their skiing, and an explanation of that guest’s goal for their lesson. It’s an exercise designed to demonstrate that we can transfer our skiing and ski teaching knowledge in a way that is understandable and relatable to a wide array of people without having to throw the book at them or completely deconstruct their skiing in order for them to evolve as skiers. Invariably, this component of the exams becomes teaching by analogy –kicking a soccer ball, boxing out in basketball, lifting heavy objects and placing them on a high shelf, feeding goldfish … As long as the non-ski activity is something that the guest understands in a meaningful way, relating to it can assist in their understanding and awareness of the movements of skiing. I do make the joke from time to time that this way of examining can lead to the mistake inexperienced instructors make that I call ‘death by a thousand analogies’, but done well it’s obviously effective. What’s interesting to me about my current off-snow predicament, is that I’m experiencing the exact opposite in real time: finding the sensations of skiing in anything, everything else I do as a way of practicing. It’s like practicing free-throws by chucking crumpled pieces of paper from my desk across the room to the trash can and hoping it works come game-time.

Kidding aside, pretty much any awareness of bodily movements and functional relationships counts from a neuromuscular practice point of view. As a practical matter, with a “summer summer” in place of my normal “summer winter” it’s simply the approach I have to take, but it does put me on the same footing as pretty much everyone else so at least I’m in good company.

Cry me a river; I’m not skiing in New Zealand this summer. Unlike New Zealand, at least while here in America people understand it when I ask them the classic question: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice is the answer; and that's apparently true whether we’re on snow or off of it.

I need to go carry some heavy bags of topsoil from one side of a property to the other. After all, every rep counts.

Coffee with a Side of Social Justice

I am not a morning person. I do wake up very early, and I like to get to work very early in the morning, but that’s because I much prefer to have a slow-moving, easy start to my day. In addition, although I prefer to think that I am not a particularly routine-driven person, I do have a very well-established morning process. Again, I don’t have a routine because I’m neurotic (insert snicker here); I have a morning routine because without it I’d end up with orange juice in my muesli and different socks on my feet. I drink coffee with my breakfast, and it’s a very particular brand of coffee for which I’ve taken some verbal abuse over the years.

I start my day with Chock Full O’Nuts coffee. Be careful what you say next, because getting teased for my coffee of choice is one of my favorite opportunities to be smug and self-righteous.

First things first: I really do love Chock Full O’Nuts coffee, so it’s not as though I have elected hardship in order to make a philosophical point. I would if I had to, but it is genuinely excellent coffee despite it’s being inexpensive. Secondly, there’s a very particular reason that the smell and taste of Chock Full O’Nuts is what my olfactory memory lands on for what coffee should smell and taste like. When I was a little kid and my family would make the long trek down-state to visit my grandparents in New York City, I often would sneak out with either my grandmother or my grandfather to go to the coffee shop for a slice of cake or a sandwich. At that time in New York, the coffee shop was invariably one of the Chock Full O’Nuts “coffee counters” that were ubiquitous in Manhattan at that time. They were less numerous than Starbucks is today (what isn’t?!), but those coffee counters were a part of New York’s DNA and New Yorkers’ everyday lives. So, for me, this is how coffee is supposed to taste, and the fragrance of it from across my kitchen in the morning makes me happy.

To be clear, my point here is not merely that I’m nostalgic for a time long ago when my grandparents were larger than life characters in the big city. My choice of coffee runs deeper than that.

When I’m in smug coffee mode, after attempting to generate a picture in the mind of my detractors of wee-little-me sitting on a stool at the counter next to my grandfather like some Lower East Side version of a Norman Rockwell painting, I dig in further. I pull out the third-rail of childhood in New York, someone that I believed then and believe now is simply beyond criticism, reproach, or even question. Yes, I bring up Jackie Robinson. No, I’m not kidding. Years after breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers, years after showing all of America and the world what sort of character it took to bear that burden, to bear the vitriol and viciousness of entrenched American racism alongside the hopes and dreams of so many yearning for their slice of the American Dream with equal aplomb and grace, Jackie Robinson retired from baseball and worked as an executive for … wait for it … Chock Full O’Nuts Coffee. He was the company’s Vice President and Director of Personnel. “Do you still want to make fun of my coffee?!”, I say with glee. Don’t go there. Just don’t go there. We’re talking about Jackie Robinson here.

Here’s the point: In my family, Jackie Robinson represented America the way we hoped it would be; the way we wanted it to be. Graduate from college; serve your country as an Army officer; fight injustice while proving your exceptional worth every day through hard work and tenacity; and raise a family and settle into a well-deserved career for a beloved American company while still being a strong advocate for social justice and with those two not being in conflict. I grew up really believing that this was the way it was all going to work in America – isn’t that why Jackie Robinson fought so hard? So we wouldn’t have to? There can be zero question that Number 42 played an essential role in moving our nation forward. Still, like all of my heroes, the point is not that Robinson did the work so we didn’t have to. The point is that he established a standard and shoved our society in the right direction in order that we all would pick up the banner of social justice, pick it up right where he left off, and do the same for the next generation of our fellow citizens.

Yesterday, the teams competing in the National Basketball Association playoffs determined that not playing their games was a vital way to draw attention to the numerous, horrific recent incidents and the long history that make clear that the struggle for social justice in America is not yet done. I am immensely proud of them, and of the National Basketball Players Association, the team owners, and NBA executives who stood by them. If I could, I would serve them all a cup of my favorite coffee so that they would know, metaphorically and literally, that they drink from Jackie Robinson’s cup and that, to me, they are the inheritors of Jackie Robinson’s struggle and the bearers of his mantle.

In truth, we all should be. It is not merely my morning cup of coffee; especially on days like today. It is a reminder that our work is not done in America. So up and at ‘em, clean yourself up with dignity, have a good breakfast, register to vote, and let’s all go out and make our country the sort of Republic we aspire for it to be. With the same nobility, strength, and grace as Jackie Robinson and so many others who came before us. #morethanavote

Dessert First

Crystal Mill near Marble, Colorado as a summer storm looms

My family enjoys sharing a story about my grandmother Stella ordering dessert first in restaurants. I am sure that she did it, albeit not regularly, and we all certainly remember the point she was making.

My paternal grandmother, she was the daughter of poor, Russian Jewish immigrants; she raised her family in a multigenerational house in New York surrounded by families with similar stories; she sent both her children to elite colleges and then medical school; and, as we all take pains to point out, she smoked, drank and gambled for the entire length of her life until, in a backhanded blessing, she died quickly in a car accident in her 80’s. There’s nothing unique about her story or ours but like so many of her generation of Americans, the example she set for us lives on in all of our minds and our spirit as a family. Stella was a rock of a human being, a rapier of a gin rummy player, and when she ordered dessert first it was because you never know what might happen next, so if a restaurant has good dessert we definitely should have it while we can.

When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 with regular Russian soldiers and sailors in unmarked uniforms in a brazen violation of the Geneva Convention and a long list of other international laws (to say nothing of the sovereignty of Ukraine), my parents and I agreed that this was why my grandmother Stella ate dessert first. You just never know. We could all imagine a Ukrainian family a lot like us enjoying a meal in a nice seaside restaurant while feeling confident in the stability of their nation and then running for safety from Vladimir Putin’s “little green men” before their soufflé arrived. I’m confident that when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated in quick succession Stella felt precisely the same impulse and acted on it, feeling as though the fabric and stability of our beloved Republic was fraying and teetering enough to feel genuinely uneasy. My grandmother was not a particularly political person – she was always far more focused instead on making sure that the machinery of the family kept everyone in line, on time, and well-fed. Still, she’s been on my mind quite a bit lately, and I’ve been wondering occasionally: should I be eating dessert first?

I watched video this morning of uniformed and armed but unidentified federal personnel tear-gassing protesters in Portland, Oregon and beating medical personnel attending to injured civilians. Should I order dessert first? I watched in horror this spring as heavily armed White Supremacist “militias” stormed the Michigan Statehouse, screaming at the security personnel and then menacing the legislators working to protect the public from the worst pandemic in a century. I’ve been imagining what the response of our elected officials in Washington would have been if those storming the statehouse had been Black – would they have been described as “good people”? What if they were Jews like me and my family? Maybe I should I go get a slice of chocolate cake just in case. And that was before George Floyd and Breonna Taylor - and countless others before them - were killed by the police officers whose oath to “protect and serve” seems to ring so hollow for so many of our fellow citizens. I just watched the episode of “Finding Your Roots” on PBS, celebrated Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s excellent program, where his guests were Rep. John Lewis and Sen. Corey Booker, and remembered that Prof. Gates was arrested by white police officers in 2009 while in his own home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is exceptionally unnerving to me that being a successful and intellectual Black man relaxing in your own home is enough to arouse suspicion that a crime is in progress in Cambridge. Get me to the nearest bakery.

The question, kidding aside, is whether the current tumult in America – pandemic, anti-intellectualism, hyper-politicization of what should be a national non-partisan quest for social justice – should cause any of us citizens to have our bags packed and one foot out the door, wolfing down our pecan pie just in case? Obviously, the answer is “no”. Resoundingly. I was born on July 4^th, I had an uncle named Sam, (Stella’s brother); I’m a life-long student of American history and have dedicated substantial time and energy to the study of American political philosophy and constitutional law; and I’m going nowhere. It’s not that I think we can rest on the work of our forbearers or that we should have no fears, but I prefer to go about my everyday life as though we live in the nation to which we aspire, the Republic that we expect it to become after we apply ourselves to the difficult task of making it so. This, after all, would be the spirit to which my hero Congressman John Lewis dedicated his life.

I’ll continue to linger over my dinner for a while and then consider what I’ll eat to finish it off with a little bit of sweetness. And perhaps we’ll find some bridges to march across together afterwards, with arms linked together and love in our hearts.

Summer / Winter, or Just Summer?

A summer storm rolls in with Snowmass in view; Old Snowmass, Colorado

Ahh, summer. Darn it, summer. Ahh, home. Darn it, home.

It’s been tough watching Cardrona Alpine Resort and Treble Cone’s opening days of the Kiwi winter season from here in an American summer. This is my first actual summer since I began working in Wanaka, New Zealand for the Kiwi winter in 2007! It’s not so much Fear Of Missing Out that gives me the blues as it is that I genuinely miss my friends. I am very fortunate to have a wonderful group of people around me in Wanaka – I do not use the word “whanau” lightly; I mean it, they feel like family.

So, just to focus on the positive, here are my Top 10 Reasons Why It’s Good To Be In America This Summer/Winter instead of Wanaka, New Zealand, in no particular order:

1. Summer is terrific - abundant sunshine, no need to bundle up, wearing flip-flops outside, and my road bike finally getting a full-season. Then again, there’s nothing quite like rising up through an early winter Wanaka inversion to help us appreciate the real value of some sunshine, and the warmth of the people makes up for the cold. Oh well.

2. I get another year to get used to Treble Cone having been acquired by Cardrona and now being in the Cardrona family. After my five seasons working there, it took several winters in the warm embrace of Cardrona to recover, and now … Then again, I’ve been quietly chatting with my friends at TC about how great it would be to work together again, the place is a genuinely inspiring mountain to ski and ride, and the whole TC community deserves the same welcome I received when I switched resorts. And sunrise at Treble Cone is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Oh well.

3. Brewed coffee, on demand. Sorry, no qualifier there. Kiwi’s are oddly proud of their barista-made espresso coffee, even though none of us foreigners can figure out why. Still, I do really love grumbling about the Kiwi espresso coffee with the other foreign staff while in the locker room – it’s like a sport unto itself. Oh well.

4. I do not have to put up with Cardrona Carol grabbing handfuls of my rear when she sees me around the Cardrona base area. Then again, it comes from a heartfelt place, it’s usually accompanied by a world class hug, the woman is an absolute gem and a legend, and she gives so much love and attention to me and everyone else, guests and staff, that it’s genuinely amazing. And I may actually enjoy it. And I miss her. Oh well.

5. I do not have to worry about keeping the Wanaka Ski Club members happy. I’m lucky to have coached their locals’ programs at both Cardrona and TC over the years, and the club members are a big part of how I’ve become so happily anchored in the wider community, not just the resorts. Wait, I don’t get to coach my master’s program?!  I love coaching them! Darn it! Oh well.

6. I do not have to mortgage my life to buy avocados or bell peppers in the supermarket; I don’t have to budget the additional half-hour of time in the supermarket for the many friends I encounter there; and I can spend the summer working on my screenplay for a Miami Vice spoof about smuggling avocados to the South Island from the Bay of Plenty in a cigarette boat. Then again, slowing it all down, taking the time to stroll to town to shop, and enjoying the feeling of being a part of such a great community while shopping is one of the things about Wanaka that I genuinely enjoy. Oh well.

7. I do not have to agree with Rachael Milner – my manager - that, yes, her uber-stylish, red, onesie ski suit she wears on retro day still fits and looks good. Then again, she really does rock it, she so obviously feels great when she dusts it off and wears it to work that the grin on her face lights up the place, and her participation alongside the staff in all the silliness is one of many reasons it’s great to work at Cardrona. And she’d lay down in traffic for the staff, me included. Darn it, Rach. Oh well.

8. I do not have to explain about all things Kiwi to the new staff from dozens of countries. Cardrona, in a normal season, includes staff from all over the world and I’ve become a bit of a “great explainer” over the years. Pot-luck pizza dinners are a common occurrence and it’s typical that they take on the appearance of a model United Nations. Those dinners are where we hash out the vagaries of winter bach living (think drafty, damp, uninsulated Kiwi summer holiday homes). Then again, my English friend Dave makes truly great pizza dough, my Finnish friend Hanne runs the kitchen like a Swiss clock with a smile on her face, my friends are always charitable in their professed enjoyment of my sauce, the Italians always appreciate the effort, and the evenings are always light, fun, and a welcome break from our busy working lives. Oh well.

9. When I’m home, I do not get stopped in my tracks by gorgeous views every time I step outside to go anywhere. I spend my time in America in some pretty beautiful places – the Rocky Mountains in Aspen, Colorado, the Green Mountains of Vermont, the New England seacoast – but there really is nothing quite like the view over SoHo basin towards the Southern Alps, or from Treble Cone over the top of Lake Wanaka, or from the Mitre 10 parking lot, along the Outlet Track, the Clutha River, Glendhu Bay … Ugh. Oh well.

10. My staying at home in America help keeps my friends, colleagues, and all Kiwis safer, and that’s the most important factor this year by a long shot. Over the thirteen winters I’ve spent working in Wanaka, the place and its people have become home and I miss it and them. They are a part of my life and my family. If staying home in America for a summer means I am doing my part to keep them and all New Zealanders safer, so be it.

Kidding aside, I am proudly American – I was born on July 4^th and I actually have an Uncle Sam, dearly departed. I am proud intellectually, culturally, and personally. Critically, remaining home this summer allows me to feel and participate on a deep and meaningful level in our national discourse during this turbulent and difficult time. That is a welcome challenge, and a deeply felt blessing for which I am very grateful. #blacklivesmatter