In the lee of a gnarly election cycle, in the shadow of holiday stress, in that transition period between an empty town and winter mayhem, the tension in the Valley is palpable. It is as tangible as a flying fist, as real as a scream in the ear, as concrete as a smashed bumper. Out and about, the early season stoke seems to have boiled over to the point of sublimation, leaving nothing behind but traces of the joy that I had not two weeks ago witnessed on every face. Given the rare blessing of gargantuan November snowfall totals, this descent into aggression is mystifying and concerning.
When the flakes come down as feathers, the vibes should be as soft as a down comforter. Instead, I have witnessed behavior so volatile, so manic, so intense that I wonder whether there has been an influx of Bolivian marching powder. Riders have cursed blue streaks at Yellow Jackets, grown men are fighting in the parking lot in the middle of the afternoon, boyfriends are lambasting girlfriends for not skiing fast enough – it’s been a cavalcade of negative energy and unacceptable interactions.
We are supposed to know better, to expect better, to demand better. Letting this dark mood pervade, allowing service workers to be demeaned, excusing infantile ranting and pouting, it simply cannot happen. We need to set a positive example, we need to be unafraid to call out transgressors in the moment, lest it become impossible to reverse the regressing tide. Thanking those who tirelessly work on our behalf – the servers, chefs, lifties, patrollers, bartenders, scanners, every single person who makes this place tick, if we treat them as we would want to be treated, that will become the standard by which we are measured and with which we measure and censure.
Vail has never been the utopia that its marketing would suggest; there has been violence and egotism and other destructive tendencies from the inception. But our natural splendor and predisposition toward community could make us a real-life Who-Ville. Just as Cindy Lou transformed the Grinch can we, visitor by visitor, newcomer by newcomer, shift the hearts and attitudes of those – local and tourist alike – who define this very special place.
It is easy to get caught in the trenches of a busy winter season, the daily ignominies, the late nights, the maltreatment, the focused aimlessness. A centering point when the negativity creeps is gratitude – for the opportunity to live a little outside of a traditional reality, to still have problems, but ones that are different and often hyper-specific to this locale. Radiating this gratitude outward, projecting a calm demeanor, spreading joy with wide, goofy smiles, it will be transformative. Because it is not just vacationers that are bringing bad juju here, it is homegrown as well. Everyone needs to work together to remedy the problem.
The trajectory of conflict in the world at large is disheartening. Recency bias notwithstanding, the psychic weight of this moment in time is massive. Imbued with its own gravity and momentum, the tendency toward ill behavior will doubtlessly increase unless a countervailing effort is made, unless we summon all of our energies in the only rational direction, toward love and peace and grace. Doing so on a nationwide scale is debilitatingly daunting, but as a cosmopolitan resort, we have a unique ability to effectuate change in a small place that can have larger geographic effects.
Positivity is communicable and, especially as we gear up for the highest of the high season, we need to manifest a pacifist pandemic, a calm contagion, a silliness scourge. Every interaction is a critical opportunity to transmit the values that we want to see reflected across our stunning mountainscape.