Last Sunday I woke up to 5" of powder and a blue sky. Out of pure excitement I called my friend Kara early - too early (7:45am) - but I did it anyway. Turns out I didn't wake her because she hadn't gone to bed yet. What luck.
"We must ride," I pronounced.
There are plenty of cold and windy weekends when you'd have to pull me out of my coziness to go outside, but this day was a godsend - new snow and sun. I knew Dave had no business going outside to play with me no matter how epic the day. He was sick from his exhausting, rain-drenched Hawaiian vacation. Poor guy brought back a bad cough along with the 351 mosquito bites that he acquired while at an ultimate frisbee tournament with his buddies. (yes, I counted them. What good is being bitten that many times without getting an accurate accounting?) Damn thing came home needing a vacation from his time in Hawaii.
Kara rallied like a champ and, along with her fun roommate Christy, we boarded Beaver Creek. Hardly any people were there. We shared slopes with maybe 5 other people at any given time. Being my first winter here I can only guess that this is what happens after spring break. Most everyone splits and the locals own the mountain.
After such a day of boarding I came home to homemade cornbread. A big plus is that Dave loves to cook and he's good at it. We ate cornbread & honey - while watching an episode of "Deadwood," our favorite HBO series - before getting ready for a spontaneous night out to see a dance performance at the
Vilar Center for the Performing Arts.
The night before we had stumbled upon a
bunch of dancers hanging out at our local coffee shop. In from New York they had performed a night in Denver and were in Vail to perform on Sunday. I've mentioned how much I miss the city and one of the biggest reasons is because in the city you can entrench yourself in creativity. . . art shows, dance performances, readings. . . in San Francisco, LA, New York creativity is everywhere. I approached some of the dancers and after a stimulating discussion about Twyla Tharp,
Bill T. Jones their own choreographer, how much water you need to drink up at 8,000 feet and the pros and cons of living here, I knew we had to go.
I was absolutely blown away by
this piece. I cried during one particular part where Bill, founder/choreographer, sings a gospel/folk song about (among other things) a young man who lost his leg in the current war while dancers are moving, one man in uniform is marching, someone is whispering a text about the perils of 4th generation war. . . it's a multimedia theatrical dance experience without being overwhelming or preachy. The 100 or so people in the audience were mainly rich people of this valley who can afford the tickets. I couldn't believe what I was seeing - how sophistocated, how timely, how moving, what vision, power and genius. I felt so lucky to have been there. And I wanted all of my friends to be there. Why didn't we know about this? Is there an outreach program for the locals, I wondered? People need to see this and these performers deserve a larger audience.
Obviously the tickets don't really pay for anything, such performances are made possible by all of the donors. I envision them saying: Broadway must come to us. Let's not go to the city anymore, it's too tiresome.
Well, thank you donors of the Vilar Center. It brings the best part of the city to us. Wow.
