Frozen Teardrop (27 page)

Every day my coach and I would go to the ice rink to practice. I had many shows coming up and rehearsals for Stars on Ice would commence soon and I could not be off the ice. I forced myself to go through the motions. The atmosphere was heavy and it was hard to even try to work on the ice. My heart went out to those who were suffering so much through this ordeal. On the Hudson River, Pier 40 had transformed into a meeting point for those who needed to retrieve their pets and for those who needed to go back to their homes to retrieve belongings that were down in zone one. My mother, while we practiced, would walk to Pier 40 to see if they would let her go down to our apartment to get our passports and all the necessary belongings and paperwork we needed. The authorities said we probably would not be able to return to live in our home for a month or more so it was urgent that we go there to retrieve some valuables. They would however not let anyone go down there yet. It was too soon.

My mother walked to this pier every day. She recalls these walks as being like those she had walked in war stricken Tehran twenty two years ago. Sometimes I went with her after skating and sometimes she went alone. My coach told us that if and when we were allowed to go to retrieve our belongings he wanted me also to bring back one of their suitcases for them. They explained to me which one they wanted but since I had never intruded into their bedroom, I had only a visual image of their description. They were old-school and since hiding money under the mattress was a normal occurrence to them, this suitcase probably had all their savings in it! It was very important to them that I take this suitcase. I promised I would.

We were not allowed to go to our home until about one week after 9/11. We were first in line and my mother and I were granted permission. My coach and his wife wanted to go down with us but they had no identification that they lived there, so they were not allowed to go. Two policemen escorted us to our apartment in Tribeca. It was a long walk from Pier 40 and there were hundreds and hundreds of people lining the streets of the West Side Highway cheering with their flags and applauding all the ambulances, fire trucks, and policemen that were driving up and down the highway with their sirens echoing in the air. It was an eerie experience to be walking down this highway with two armed policemen, one in front of us and one behind us. It felt like we were part of the military and on a mission to save lives.

At long last we reached our home. Our apartment was on the 20th floor and since all the electricity had been cut, the elevators were not working. The building was quiet with not a soul anywhere. It was spooky and the disaster area was just a short walk away. It gave me the shivers. All four of us walked up the twenty flights of stairs. By the time we reached our apartment my mother was so nervous that she fumbled with the house key. The policemen had a look on their faces indicating they thought that we might not even live there, but I took the key from my mother and calmly opened the door. The policemen said we had only five minutes to pack up and go. They would look at their watches and time us.

My mother and I ran into the apartment and as quickly as we could we filled two suitcases and I grabbed the suitcase my coach had described to me. “Time's up,” the policemen shouted and out we had to go. We were nervous, and panicky. We closed the door and locked it with the key. Down we went twenty floors with our suitcases in tow. We tripped a lot but the policemen did not help us with our load. We had one policeman in front of us and one behind us. Walking down in silence we heard only our footsteps and the occasional bump of the suitcase on the walls that made the staircase so narrow.

As soon as we were out we parted ways with the policemen who said they had to go to help other residents like us who were waiting for their escort into their apartment.

My mother and I were left on our own to walk back up the highway to Pier40. The side streets were so packed with people behind the barricades and policemen holding them in that we were told to walk up the highway in the right car lane where it was empty. We were the only ones walking up this highway. We heavily put one foot in front of the other lugging our heavy suitcases, exhausted physically, and mostly mentally, and as we passed the people they started clapping and cheering us on. They must have seen our despair on our faces, or they might have thought we had been rescued, but whatever the cause, we were cheered on like heroes. It was wonderful and at the same time embarrassing since we had just gone to retrieve our belongings and felt unworthy of such cheering. It did help us tremendously, however, to give us the strength for us to be able to walk all the way back up.

My coach and his wife told us they would be waiting for us at Pier 40. We trudged on. Finally we saw them from a distance and as ambulances and police and FBI cars were continuously whizzing by us we were able to manage a smile when we saw their faces in the crowd. We reached them, and the police let my coach and his wife out of the barricaded area to greet us. But as soon as we hugged them his wife started to scream at me — really screaming and shouting at me. I realized I had brought the wrong suitcase and she was fuming. I started to cry, feeling they had not been appreciative and had not even voiced a thank-you before complaining. As she was screaming at me in Chinese and I was crying, my coach tried to pull her back and police surrounding us tried to calm us down. Even psychologists that were on hand appeared to ask if we needed help. She quieted down and we left the area distraught and took a taxi to the place we where we were going to stay.

We were all hurt in one way or another by all that had happened and the tension rose among the four of us. My mother and I would go to eat Japanese food for dinner and they would go to eat Chinese food. We became separated and it felt like they were mad at us for making them go through all of this. But it hadn't been our fault that 9/11 had happened. Although we felt sorry for them that this had to be their experience of America just one month after arriving, we were doing the best we could as well. While my mother and I stayed a little longer in the apartment, my coach and his wife must not have felt comfortable, and they left to stay in Brooklyn with another Chinese skater's family he taught. We lost communication for a few weeks thereafter. It always feels like you are intruding in someone's space when you stay too long and it began to feel like that in the apartment. Although everyone in New York City stuck together during this time, it can't be overlooked that the people were tense and scared and it did not help the situation. It seemed to work perfectly that I had to go to the International Skating Center of Connecticut in Simsbury, Connecticut for a skating show the third week of September and then continue to stay there to start rehearsals with Stars on Ice. I departed the city with a big skating fan of mine and went by limo up to Connecticut leaving my mother behind. With my father arriving on the first flight available to New York City shortly after I left for Simsbury my mother would wait for him. Together they stayed at yet another friend's apartment for a short while before they joined me. It felt a relief to be able to escape from the city. I felt like I could breathe again and step back away from all the chaos. In many ways it made me feel guilty that I had not stayed in the city and suffered together with the New Yorkers but I had work to do and promises to keep. I felt that it was a time that people needed to see joy as well as sorrow and I hoped to contribute in that way the best I could. Because I had no costumes with me and had not been able to retrieve them when we went back to the apartment, I did the show with practice clothes. It did not matter. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. Glitz became irrelevant. Truth and life became virtues.

I dedicated each skating performance to those who had been taken away and those who were left behind suffering. The motive and magnitude of what was behind this tragedy was incomprehensible to me. I dealt with it the only way I knew and could. I stuffed it away within me and skated. On the ice I just skated from my heart the pain I was feeling for others. I felt that was the least, and at the same time, the most I could do. My experience had only been a small fraction of those much more affected and there was no excuse for me not to keep the faith, hope, and beauty going by skating. I wanted to keep the spotlight shining so that all those that watched might, just might, catch a glimpse of beauty and magic that would make them feel a little more hopeful then when they arrived, even if it only lasted a second. I strived to do that for everyone I passed and every time I stepped on to the ice that year. I strived to love what I did for the sake of those who paid heavily. I would do my best to spread the magic on the ice.

(NEW YORK CITY, 72 CITY TOUR, NEW YORK CITY)

“We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.”
Mother Teresa

D
evotion is one of life's grandest and most powerful attributions. I was raised to have devotion — devotion to my parents, to coaches, to skating, to working, to being the best I could be in everything and for everybody who came my way, but I was never taught to be devoted to myself. Without the sake of devotion to others I would not have survived, and I also would not have spun my way into oblivion. Unremitting devotion is unselfish. It is almost the giving of the soul if it is taken to the extreme. It persuades you to forget about yourself and live for others in the best way possible. It releases your ego and you find yourself reluctantly bowing your head to the people and things that you think are most important to you. You cannot lose your soul without devotion to your goal. It lets you erase all else so that only your goal is visible.

Devotion is captivating, enthralling, and it brainwashes you in such a way that you will push anything aside to stand by your reasoning based on such immense feelings. Devotion is a way of life. You can understand the astronomical value and affect such a trait can have on a being. Yes, devoted I was. Devoted to the ones I loved and to my skating. I wish now that I had as much respect for myself as I had for others so that I could have been also devoted to myself, in heart and soul. Then just maybe I would not have ruined my own creation. Perhaps I would have had enough understanding and love for myself to protect myself from my own wrongdoing. Then perhaps I would have been awake enough to realize the world around me and within me. I had given my soul away through my devotion and maybe at that time it was a blessing in disguise. I had been unworthy of carrying it and it was better off in someone else's possession. Until I could be who I was meant to be I would not be given back my devotion. Now, in the present, since I am worthy once more of the soul I was born with, I carry it ever so gently in the palm of my hands and in the depths of my heart.

Stars on Ice rehearsals commenced and I was in great joy to be a part of such an elite and prestigious family of skaters, choreographers, and agents, along with media galore, privileges, and wonderful productions. I was disappointed, however, about being cast as the show queen of the show, undermining my skating abilities and spinning technique. I was not even given a real solo. Yet, I thought to myself that this would be easier on me and I should just enjoy the journey. The ego conflicts of many skaters in such an elite group would prove detrimental to becoming a cohesive group. Through our rehearsals our bonds grew tighter and we looked out for each other and enjoyed each other's company, but we would not become close friends. We were all still in our own bubbles as figure skaters.

Skaters are brought up as individuals who never compete with a team. We all want to win with our other individual competitors doing their best as well, but we also would rather they make mistakes so that our win is easier. It is not in our nature to want to be negative towards anybody. It is just the nature of a sport that is judged on individual performance. We are all brought up being separate. How else could we think? How else would we survive in such a pack of animals all waiting for the same bait? We do not learn team skills. At least I did not and my skating training did nothing for a team mentality.

There were twelve top skaters, “la crème de la crème,” the tip of iceberg of the skating world, and even though we all are on the ice together, we could sense and feel the bubble around each of us. We would not dare burst someone's bubble. It is their survival mechanism. However, I was most friendly with the top male skater who I adored and looked up to, and I was also friendly with the jolly and enriching crew and tour director. They were my friends to lean on and they were my friends that put a smile on my face. That seemed to me like their most important job of all.

At the end of November after our month long rehearsals, during Thanksgiving was the opening night of Stars on Ice. It was held in Lake Placid, and we would have one show and then a break before touring sixty cities in America and twelve more in Canada, starting right after Christmas. The opening night was glorious. My dream had come true and after completing this tour I would feel that I truly had done everything I could have in the skating world, despite my feelings about the Olympics.

Thanksgiving was special as well since it is not a holiday my family ever celebrated and my mother and I enjoyed it thoroughly. My father had stayed for the special event. It felt like we were part of a very elite group and had become part of a family — a special family it was and always would be.

I had almost forgotten a special incident on the day of the opening night. At this time of my life my hair was my natural brown and short. The evening before the opening night after the dress rehearsal the producer came up to me and told me that the production team all wanted me to go back to blond, if I agreed to it. It wasn't really a question. It was more of an order. They said they felt it fit better with the character I was playing as the show queen threaded throughout the whole show. I agreed since to me it did not really matter. Sometimes I wanted to change my hair color every week!

So the next day they arranged for me to go to a hair salon in the area that would color me back to blond. It took around eight hours of my sitting in the chair! My hair went through a rainbow of colors, each more shocking then the last. Red, orange, yellow, green, anything but blond until the very last hour! I liked the result although my scalp was burning and itching like crazy. So I had awakened in the morning as a brunette and ended the night as a blond in sparkly costumes and head dresses! What a life!

After the opening night, it was incredibly odd to be back in Tribeca and so close to where the Twin Towers had been. It was even stranger not to be able to see them anymore in the New York City skyline. It was still disorderly downtown where we lived. It was very dirty with soot covering the ground like a blanket covering the deceased, and the stench was still looming over the area. My mother said when she returned to the apartment the floor was covered in soot as well. The windows had been closed but as the fire engulfed our building smoke entered the apartment and covered it in black ashes. It gave me the shivers to think what it really consisted of. My sadness returned as I stepped back into my home.

A few days after my returning home, my Chinese coach had become incredibly sick. The stress of 9/11 had caused tremendous anxiety to my usually calm, meditative, and collected coach. The incident had been too much for him to handle. My coach literally glowed orange. His eyes turned that same color as well and it was terrifying. He was rushed to the hospital and had to undergo surgery right away. He had a liver infection. I felt it had been my entire fault and I felt so guilty. I had brought him and his wife to America. I had made it possible and now within the first few months, 9/11 happened and now he was sick. I could not understand what I had done wrong. Maybe I should have never intervened. Maybe it hadn't been my place. I had tried so hard to give them a new life and yet all I had done was bring more chaos to the whole family. I couldn't catch a break.

Sometimes when you try to make someone else happy it could do more harm than good when you yourself are not in the position to make a situation better. I now know it is important to always see and check on yourself first. Are you happy? Are you in a good space? If you are, helping others will be a good thing, but if not, then fix your own life first. It will cause much less havoc to everyone involved in the end. My coach would end up being fine, but the tension between the four of us grew and we would grow apart little by little over the next few years as they dealt with their struggles and I with my own.

Since we were living in zone one, the building management gave all the tenants the opportunity to cancel their lease and move out. My coach and his wife wanted to move out and be on their own, so we canceled the lease and my mother and I moved into a smaller apartment in the same building. We had no time to look for another building in another area. I would not be there much. I was in and out of Manhattan for the next year since I had so many shows, photo shoots for the upcoming tour, and other obligations and competitions to attend. In the end, for the four of us, it was to be “to each his own.” We parted ways leaving a bit of our heavy hearts in each one of us. We left unfinished business. In this way we knew our paths would cross once more.

I went to the World Professional Championships once more and placed third with the bronze medal as I did the year before. The critics said I should have been placed second, but being judged and dwelling over other people's judgment is truly a waste of time in my opinion and I was just happy to be alive and skating. Shows were exciting that year. Foxwoods, Mohegan Sun, and Atlantic City were to be rated the best. The casino show settings were beautiful and serene as the audience was only on one side and the spectators were all at dinner tables with candle lights burning.

After 9/11 at each show I dedicated the performance to those who had passed on. That year each show felt to me as if they were watching from above and we were skating for them, too. It felt like it was our responsibility as performers to bring back joy to the world in our own little way. Each performance was, however, a little eerie. With many people still traumatized from the event they did not want to leave the comfort of their homes. We would skate to half empty arenas throughout the next two years. It was depressing, but the show must go on, and go on we did.

The holidays ended as quickly as they had come that year. It was sad to be in the city with the memories of 9/11 lingering and I was eager to be off on the tour. The whole tour including Canada ended in June of 2002. It would be a long six months of living out of suitcases and in and out of hotels and performing incredibly shows! We were treated like royalty, staying at the best hotels in all the best cities. Even our luggage was taken care of. I did not need to lift a finger but just to skate well. It might have been the last year of such luxury from the sponsors for the skaters on this tour, since the skating business would crash soon after.

But the best part was traveling by private jet. That was truly awesome. There is no better word for it. My mother and father and even my sister would come to visit me on tour and giving them the gift of flying on a private jet made me proud. I felt I had achieved what we had all worked for, for so long in my life. I took every day of the tour with stride and care and I soaked it all in with every sense I had. I became more and more comfortable as the tour went on and I made a couple of great friends on the way. There was no bigger honor in skating professionally then to be on this tour. However, and this is a big however, there were lots of consequences of those experiences that hampered the ability for me to be truly in my element and enjoy the skating.

I only speak the truth, not to offend anyone but to protect my promise that this book is the whole truth. The first was that I did not like the role I was given or the costumes I had to wear. I, from the time of being very young, had never wanted to be a show pony and this role made me feel like a Vegas showgirl. Many things are not what they seem to be, and although I might have looked grand and rich I felt cheapened and discarded. Everything I had to do was exactly the opposite of what I wanted to embody and represent, which was elegance, magic, and refinement. Please do not misunderstand me. The costumes were well and thoughtfully made but were just completely out of my element. They had surely good and wonderful intentions but I was so uncomfortable. I had many changes of costumes throughout the night as well, but not one seemed to be me at all. I had to wear headdresses and all sorts of things that totally hampered my spins.

In the beginning I was supposed to open the show with fireworks of spins in all different areas of the ice with the spotlight going on only when I was in the spin so that the audience would be in suspense as to what would happen and where I would spin next. But egos always get in the way on such occasions and someone had that part removed. Maybe it was too good, maybe it was bad, but it was not to the liking of some other people involved who all had a higher rank than I, and so it had to be taken out. So it ended up that neither the costumes nor the role were to my liking but I did not speak out and was too afraid to tell my agent in case they would then not have me tour. I did not know how to stand up for my rights and beliefs and no one else did it for me either. Plus I felt just so honored to be part of this incredible family that I would rather do what they envisioned. I was so excited to be on this tour.

Second, it was an Olympic year and sometimes for this reason it was very hard for me to skate. I was the second youngest on this tour and the only one younger than I was an Olympic champion. So I felt robbed of my youth and felt I should still be on an amateur circuit competing at the Olympics, being an Olympian. Since we were on tour during the Games everyone watched it on television but I could not. I turned away and read a book. I wonder what the other skaters thought of me on that tour. I often sat alone, was very quiet, and was in my own world. I never spoke much nor did I party with them. I never saw the use of sharing chit-chat and gossip. I could not bear to hear it either. It was all gibberish to me. My mind was wondering about the creation of man and the world. I was a loner. They might have seen it as arrogance.

I recall my agent and some producers telling me that they remember me as always being alone in a corner. Not because I was timid or shy. No, not at all, rather the opposite. But discussions in intimate settings were not my thing. I had so much to say, but I knew that saying what I wanted would only get me in huge trouble. So I just locked all my words away and I turned to the act of observing. I was lost, too within my own world.