The Right Reasons
Making memories if not the movie. Photo: Adam Clark
In 2010, I found myself on top of a spine run in Alaska called Velvet Curtain. It was the type of run that both fueled and haunted my dreams, keeping me up at night wondering if I could ride it. The run was steep—a face covered with spines, flutes, and snow-covered wrinkles, like someone had draped a wrinkled sheet off a ridge. The cameras were ready. I could only see the snow for fifty feet in front of me before it rolled over and dropped off to a view of the glacier, over a thousand feet below. In theory, there was a skiable run between me and the glacier, but my mind was finding it hard to believe at that moment that I wasn’t about to ski off the edge of the world. They counted me in over the radio and so I went. My legs began working rhythmically, back and forth, making turns, settling into that muscle memory that helped me remember that I could do this. Each few turns earned me a view of the next few. I skied steadily, purposefully, and in control. I slowed down at one point to assess where my stuff would be during my exit of the spine, but I didn’t come to a stop. I flowed out the bottom, ecstatic that I had skied the line, exhilarated with the floaty feeling of sliding down a steep spine, loosely connected to the earth by a field of energy that belonged solely to me and the snow beneath my skis. In my mind, I nailed that run.
A few months later, in the edit room at my friend’s house who was making the ski movie, he showed me a rough cut. “But where’s the Velvet Curtain line?” I asked. “Oh, yeah. That didn’t make the movie. It’s a long line, and you didn’t ski it super fast. I guess it just didn’t have that wow factor.”
Seeing the forest way down through the trees.
I was floored—this line was something I had been dreaming about for years since I’d first seen the face. And I had skied it! What else could I have done? I could have straight-lined it I guess? I thought I had followed the brief exactly. I felt dejected. If I could ski a line like that and it didn’t even make the movie, what was even the point? I was bummed for about a day and then I realized that seeing the line in a movie was not actually the point. The point was that I had skied the line. I had experienced that singular feeling, and that experience was mine. It was in me; no one could take that from me. It didn’t matter if anyone else ever saw it; the point of my skiing, the whole reason I pursued skiing professionally in the first place was to ski more and better, to see where I could take my skiing. It was liberating to realize deep down, I didn’t actually care if the line was in the movie or not.
When I first started freeskiing, every line was for myself. I did it purely for my own enjoyment and progression. When I started competing in freeskiing contests, I was skiing with a goal in mind, skiing towards a specific outcome—but still I was doing it for myself. I was conscious that I was the one who had to be happy or not happy with my line at the end of the day.
Then, when I began skiing for ski movies in front of the camera, believe it or not everything was still on actual film. I could ski a line and not end up seeing what it looked like—or others’ reactions to the line—for months. It felt like I was still skiing for my own self. My skiing existed in that singular time and space when I was skiing, and in my own head afterwards.
If no one can see us, does this skiing actually count?
After several years of filming, I became more aware of others’ perceptions of my skiing. I would get feedback from the editors while making the movie, or occasionally I would accidentally see a review of the movie online, or a comment that mentioned my skiing. Also, I was getting paid to ski by that point, and my contracts depended mainly on the lines I skied and how they were perceived in the movies.
Around 2010 when social media became one of the main ways to distribute ski content, I was much more involved in others’ opinions of my skiing—that’s what social media is all about. It became much more difficult to separate what I was skiing for myself vs. what I was skiing for others’ expectations of my skiing.
My skiing went from what some pyschologists call “task-driven,” or “purpose-driven,” to more “ego-driven.” Doing things simply out of intrinsic motivation, for the love of the sport, personal progression, or the activity—these are all task-driven ways of being, whereas ego-driven pursuits are geared towards others’ reactions or towards a certain outcome. Like, making it in a movie, for example.
For several years after having kids, there was a big shift in my way of thinking about my ski career, that I’m reluctant to admit was more ego-based. After my contracts were reduced for getting pregnant, I began thinking in terms of my worth as a skier based on what others thought of me, both within the industry and on social media. After having my contracts cut, I was focused on proving my worth to others, that I still had a place here even as a mom. But over the past couple of years I’ve been able to separate these two things more. I’m still skiing because I love to ski—that’s my same goal. And by moving back towards purpose-driven and task-driven skiing, in the case of projects like skiing 100 days in a row, it’s helped me get back to the pursuit of skiing and each day and each turn simply as a task in service to a bigger goal—skiing the best I can for who I am right in this moment.
Just keep going, one task and one step at a time. Photo: Adam Clark
