On what it is like to work at a ski resort in the old mining town I grew in
Today I ate lunch in the cafeteria with a ski instructor, Marcel from Romania, who split his cheesecake in half to share with me. With name tags, people become a place a name a face and a department. Me, local, reservations. There is a guy, Brett, who I worked with back when I was 14 or 15 or however old you can be so that you are not as illegal as the people from Argentina. We smile and wave at each other, I’m sure I haven’t changed much from my quiet awkward teen soul. While working, I take phone call after phone call from guests who for the most part are pleasant, mostly people who have skii’d here for years and years and years, but then the snow comes up, and I can say things like “72 of our 100 runs are open” and “we have excellent snow-making technology” but “I’m right there with you praying or dancing or whatever it is you do for these snow gods to quit teasing us”. I ride the bus which runs twice a day for employees, and as the days get longer I see a little bit more of the sun each day, or really just the mountains and their shadows, mountains I’ve climbed and pee’d on for years and years and years, but I feel like a stranger to them, and I can’t but feel betrayed by this seasons anomaly. I’ve lived in seven different houses in this town, and all seven still stand, but the stores on Main Street have changed, and the preserve keeps shrinking, and my high school was completely remodeled since I graduated. Although my tag reads “Park City” I can’t but relate to our guests from New York or California or Anywhere, Earth, as a tourist here. Nobody seems a local anymore, and it breaks my sorry little 6year old self who moved here and thought the snow was salt. But! Not to write a glum obituary about my town, on a brighter note I am full of smiles and galaxies for being back, I am scraping pennies to make rent (sooo 99% of me), gaining weight and learning to love myself and my friends in marvelous ways. So we cool.
