Josi Stephens

Josi Stephens expresses herself freely.

my so-called life

Reminiscing on the rocky path that led to shred Shangri-La.

In this snow sport industry that I inhabit, rarely does a day pass where I am not challenged in a manner that high education did nothing to prepare me for. It is a relentless uphill climb, yet undeniably the reason that I vibrate on high from bell to bell. With weirdly asinine moments sandwiched by crystaline excellence, no career is stranger or more fulfilling. I have found that there are only so many ways to say “frothing” on Instagram (though I haven’t run dry yet) and only in snowboarding is the term “love over money” something that one truly believes, even while weeping at the ATM.

So how did I end up here? Why would any sane human put all of their chips on the snowboard industry table? Perhaps one word can cover it: community, though in reality there are so many things that make up a community. Writers, artists, hypemen/ women, designers, social media nerds, craftspeople, moneypeople and your little dog too, they all come together to keep this monster breathing. There is a place for everyone if you want it bad enough; knowing that the ‘want it bad enough’ part is the hardest thing to cultivate. Like a shiny new college grad showing up in Jackson with a communications degree and no working knowledge of life outside of Phi Beta Something, this world will be a full-blown mystery with heartbreak at every turn. That’s where dogged perseverance and a friend that has actually made it to the promised land, paying bills sans bartending job, comes in real handy. We all have that homie that sustains their existence with a Volcom paycheck and the grass doesn’t just look greener over there, it is greener. And in constant need of mowing and raking and scooping dog poop and screaming at the neighbor kids to get the fuck off of it. But I digress.

Naturally none of that really does the job of explaining how I, Josi, ended up working in the snowboard world by way of Travis Rice’s art baby, Asymbol. I whole-heartedly promise that there is no way on god’s green earth that anyone will ever get here the way I did, but there is a point to be made with this story. So I will tell it.

PHOTO: CHRIS DUNN

“I happily made thousands of cocktails, fabulous friends, and countless bad decisions.”

As a young child, like so many emotionally overwrought little girls, I fell in love with the world of literature and writing. I wrote page after page of complete drivel and then forced my family to listen while I recited it in five different voices. Fast forward to a small mountain town in Oregon where I pieced together a degree over seven years of putting snowboarding before my general studies. It took that long to realize that I didn’t want to make my love of words into a job, not yet anyway. It also took that long to realize that though I was a solid rider, I was far more skilled at getting Burton pro-forms and looking good on the hill. And like any impulsive 20-something, off to an overpriced design school I was. With nobody warning me that making it in the apparel industry while our economy tanked was about as easy as any career at that time. The post-college world was wildly unkind; I almost took a job at Burgerville. With tale between legs, I relocated to the only place that made sense, a tiny town in a state I had only been to once with an old dog and $400 to my name. This is where low career expectations and high stoke on the Tetons came in real handy. I happily made thousands of cocktails, fabulous friends, and countless bad decisions and within a year or so landed on the Asymbol doorstep begging for an internship. That is the way it works sometimes, eventually the desire to be a part of something great overrides the fear of failure. In some strange turn of events, this winding road took me right to the place that I had been unknowingly seeking with all of my being. A place where I could write, design, snowboard, and be integral to a community that is worth every up and every down, always.

Why is any of this important? Who cares how some lady ended up working for a snowboarder-headed art gallery in Wyoming?

It is important because if you are still reading this then there is something inside of you that wants to get to this place. It may look a lot different than my world but it is the same and you want it. In a culture where people are taught to compromise everything for an existence that falsely seems safe, you and I know that this snowboard community gives us so much glorious life that there is no need to compromise. We can, in fact, have it all if we want it bad enough.

js

Josi Stephens loves words, art, horses and naps. She hails from the beach and lives in the mountains with her ancient dog Pharaoh.

@Mustang_Josi

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