9/11 - it’s a day that everyone can remember or a day you’ve learned about in your history books. A day that defined the US and a day that changed my entire life. 

My dad, Steven Schlag, was on the 105th floor of the North Tower on September 11th, 2001 and did not make it home that day. I was five years old, it was six days before my birthday, and everything I had once known seemed so different. 

My dad taught me how to ski when I was two. There’s a video of him pushing me around our snowy driveway at our cabin in upstate New York. I was in a hand-me down onesie that my siblings had all grown out of and a Boeri helmet that resembled a bowling ball more than a protective piece. The one thing that remained a constant after he died, was always skiing. We went skiing and felt like kids again - we didn’t have to think about the grief we were all trying to process.

We eventually moved to Park City in 2005 to start anew, in a place where we could live out my dad’s dream of moving west and revolving our lives around skiing. As I grew up, I started to understand the severity of my dad’s death and the trauma that we had collectively gone through. I fell victim to my grief and felt isolated from everyone because it felt so heavy to talk about. Growing up in a Japanese-American household, we didn’t talk about our feelings too much, so it was hard to verbalize what I was feeling. I was lost and depressed and the only thing that made me feel like I could escape my head was getting outside.

I turned to skiing to take the weight of my life off of my shoulders, because the freest you’ll feel is carving fast down a groomer or skiing weightless in powder. I would ski to escape my mind, but I eventually realized that skiing was the strongest thing connecting me to my dad. He taught me how to ski in our driveway when I was two and he was teaching me how to find my way back to myself at 17. In high school, I used skiing as a lifeline to get through all the deeply intense feelings I had. I now realize that skiing brings me my community, my confidence, my joy, my purpose and it brings me that much closer to my dad. 

So what did I do with this realization? I decided to make a movie about it - so people could connect with my story and feel less alone. I’ve learned that connecting with people about shared experiences is one of the most special things we can do as humans. The ski industry is slowly opening up about real topics that real people can relate to and that change is going to make people love this sport even more than we already do; and I wanted to be a part of that change. 

This fall I had the opportunity to premiere my film, Bloom, in Utah, Colorado, Montana and it’s even making its way to Florida. The best part about the premieres? The conversations that happened after with people who connected so deeply with my story. It was overwhelming and validating at the same time. I wanted to make sure people felt seen in my story, to make sure that whatever they were/are going through, they could see that other people have felt the same things and have weathered the storm. Through the whole process of filming, premiering and releasing Bloom, I learned to heal and appreciate skiing that much more. 

If you want to learn more about my story, you can watch my film, Bloom.