salt lake gloom
I am not sure why I dislike Salt Lake City, and why I have such a strong & depressive reaction to it sometimes…
the image posted on this page is an early morning shot I took last July of the mountains that loom over the town. Salt Lake is a place of simply stunning physical beauty. It has the fastest indoor speed skating track in the world, and the typical amazing mountain west climate (amazing to an east coast fella like myself).
When I first moved to Colorado in 1993, I fought it in my heart for a while. The big sky, the massive blizzards that melt away in a day, the dry heat of summer, the moods of the rockies that constantly changed like my own moodyness within the spin-cycle hurlybury of grad school. But I stayed for 8 years, and came to truly love that place and the gentle climate.
So why am I fighting Salt Lake in my heart? Am I simply fearing change? of embracing the uncertainty of pouring my whole self into Olympic trials, into a town I don’t know? There are so many good things in salt lake, I have terrific coaches who want to work with me, I have many skate bums for friends, the beauty of the place, is again, simply stunning…..
But last night driving around town with my wife in pouring rain (Jessica is pretty excited, personally and professionally, about moving here), talking about if we should rent or buy some cheapo house, I just fell into this depression, this vacuum of despair, and I went silent as a statue, and felt about as alive as one too..
Salt lake does have a particularly hideous kind of western urban big-box store, gated community, ticky-tacky tract housing sameness some areas. The Mormons are not a factor in my mopery, as my life & self is separate from their theocracy.
But I do not understand this black stone in my heart about salt lake. Maybe I know so little about it, my fears rush in to fill the empty space. Like the water table filling a quarry pit. Ask me in 8 years how I feel about Salt Lake.
Filed under: on the road, from the coffee shop
Hey Andrew…here’s my two cents… I think you’re not really THERE yet. It’s hard to feel “right” and at home in a place where you’re completely unsettled. I think you felt good in Milwaukee because you sort of had a home, Olu is so nice about sharing his house and you’re a good roommate. You found noodles, the woman to cut your hair, alterra, you know your way around…all the little silly things that officially make a place your home. But in Salt Lake, it seems like you’ve always been camped out in somebody’s house or hotel room and racing or training, and you haven’t had to get into a routine for the other parts of your life. So you end up comparing a place that felt acceptable as “home” to one that is supposed to be good but doesn’t feel as comfortable. You had also set some part of your head on being in Milwaukee and it’s hard to just say ok, now it’s Salt Lake!
The other thing is that Milwaukee has things each of us want, like a great coach or friends or whatever it is, but it’s more like the underdog because Salt Lake is supposed to be THE place for skating, with the altitude, mountains, faster ice. And you have two coaches who are excited to work with you and friends who are excited to work with you. Those are all good things, but maybe now it feels like you’re really going to do this and it’s less of an adventure? You’ve always had your own program and trained with things that make good, crazy stories (tire and duck shit, long track blades on short track ice, not-quite-frozen pond…). What are you going to do now that things might actually work for you?! I think that leaves a little empty space, but I also think that once you go there for real, Jessica has a great job, you have your great coaches, and you establish your post office, coffee shop, favorite ride in the mountains, warmup routine at the oval, what you do with Kirk and Eva when, and aaaallllll that, you will do great things with your skating and you’ll feel good about the whole thing.
Happy training!
Carla
[…] es people told Jess and I before we moved here. In one of the earliest posts on this blog, Salt Lake Gloom, I talked about how I felt. However, pretty much every stereotype I had has been proven wrong! […]