Status Update

Boulder.
First impressions: the air smells good. A little bit LA, a little bit Santa Fe (definitely "Western"), but if you hold your hand over the mountain view, you could almost be in parts of the Midwest. Our first night I went to the grocery store behind our hotel to pick up snacks and dinner supplies (we finally got wise and booked a suite with a kitchenette and separate bedroom- no more going to bed at 8pm with the girls--though, with Eleri's internal clock set to NY, we would have been wise to go to bed early; yesterday I got up with her at 5am local, today Dave had the pleasure at 5:45); the woman at the checkout said that they, too, have had two weeks of rain, but to remember Boulder is some kind of desert (note to self: what kind? look this up) and to drink lots of water an invest in some chapstick. And it's true: my lips are constantly dry.

I drove all over town in my early morning with Eleri, and Boulder is small but lovely. When Garmindy (our Garmin GPS system has been inexplicably named after Carmindy, the make up artist on What Not to Wear who, incidentally, I worked with on a photo shoot a decade ago and who Dave and I both can't stand) sent me on a weird detour through a high-end subdivision, I came upon the Boulder Reservoir, a man-made lake and recreation spot, which, at 7am, was teeming with cars. Turns out there was a triathalon (there ususally is) but, undeterred, we came back to spend Father's Day morning there. And despite my misgivings, mine was not the only soft, pale body (though boy, was I in the minority.)

Speaking of pale, the town is, as we were told, overwhelmingly White. The only minorities we have seen are maids in our hotel. Coming from the racuous mish-mash of NYC, and particularly our current nieghborhood where, as White Americans, we are the minority (following Hispanics and Eastern Europeans), this strikes me as weird. But far more than the lack of racial diversity, I wonder if this place will feel one-dimensional in terms of ideologies: is everyone here liberal? relatively affluent? well educated? Or is this a town, like other college towns in beautiful settings, that has only a few distinct class populations: a student class, a more-or-less leisure class, and a service class? Where will we fit in to all this? I have noticed that, again coming from New York, the job opportunities seem to be narrow, and I have said that I would work at a bookstore (or whatever), yet I find myself surprised to see these young, white, educated people working at the car rental or the hotel front desk or the deli counter.

I have also heard that Boulder is a nice place to live "for a year or two," and the rental properties that I have looked at seem to speak of the itinerant nature of a college town. Serviceable. Rents higher than you might think because they can be--the population of Boulder is 95,000, of which 25,000 is the UC Boulder student body; that's a lot of turnover--but a real dearth of options for a family. It's freeing to be a renter; but it's a little depressing to look at rentals, especially on what will essentially be a student budget, when you have been a professional and a homeowner for a decade. But I have managed to shift my perspective, not to think in the long term about having a home, but to think about what will work, what's right for the girls, and even to try something on in terms of lifestyle: a townhouse with a pool and maintenance built in to the rent; a tiny house with a big yard; a less-desirable property in a more-desirable part of town.
So I guess I'm expanding my horizons. Which is a good thing.

I will say this: driving here is more pleasant (and parking galore!), people make eye contact at check out lines, biking is not a combat sport, good pre-schools are STILL enrolling for the fall, and my suspicion that there are easier places to live than NYC, and that choosing to "sell out" for an easier life, is a good choice. The right decision.