We’ve moved a lot, this is true. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so heart-wrenching that our kids get uprooted every four or five years if my parents hadn’t lived in the same house forever, giving my sisters and me a comforting sense of stability and a deep-rooted sense of place and belonging.
As difficult as it was to leave our dream home, once we were in our new place we rarely looked back. The downside of moving from the countryside to downtown suburbia was that our neighbors’ homes were so close we could no longer run around naked or have a private conversation outside, and Baddy and I had to keep our windows closed lest we get too noisy on our unexpected date nights. The upside was that our public transit system, RFTA, gave the kids more freedom, and all my peeps were just a stone’s throw away.
Life in the Banana Belt
According to The New York Times, Basalt, Colorado, began as a rough railroad town in the late 1800s. I was quite happy living in this small Western town with a history in the “banana belt.” The air was warmer than where we came from in Old Snowmass, and fruit trees, and bears to devour the fruit, were everywhere.
In Basalt I had my village, with neighbors who put our boys to work and close friends who popped in unannounced for coffee and wine at any hour. Five minutes away was my fitness studio, a well-run, affordable studio with kick-butt teachers. I had Whole Foods down the highway, where the staff would go out of their way to help me find the perfect recipes. I had free-range eggs delivered weekly from a nearby rancher, and the downvalley City Market, unlike the one in Aspen, didn’t bring out my inner Massachusetts road rage the second I walked through the door.
I also had Big John and Steve at High Tone Autobody, who were there for me when my stolen, totaled car arrived in their impound lot after being jacked from our driveway (located next to the police station), and again when I screeched up in the Hyundai with six boys piled inside to get a door fixed that wouldn’t close on our way to go summer skiing at Copper Mountain.
That was my life in Old Snowmass and in Basalt: driving a carload of farting, burping boys while blasting music loud enough to assault the ears of anyone over 25. Baddy, in his Black Fly sunglasses and signature visor, often teased me about it. “What on earth has happened to our little princess?” he’d lovingly joke, patting my behind just to show who won this game.
At least the most important man in my life recognizes that once upon a time, I indeed lived the life of a princess.
