Aspen
Lots of people are curious about what it’s like to live in a mountain resort town.
I know this because people are often incredulous riding up the chair lift when I tell them I live in the town down below.
I think it’s hard for visitors to believe that the Steamboats and Tellurides of the world are real towns. They come to these places to forget the real world for awhile, so maybe there’s a reluctance to see it.
Growing up in a resort town, one of the first things you learn is that people love and hate them. They love them because these are places they can ski, bike, hike, raft, party, and relax in between. They hate them because they believe that the people who live there do these things all the time. Which is true, in a sense. We participate in these things throughout the year, but most of us actually spend more time working at jobs than on our turns and tans.
You hear stories about people who come here for just one winter (or summer, or fall, or spring) and end up staying for life. It’s the stuff chamber of commerce brochures are made of. And, believe it or not, it does happen.
But, something even harder to believe is that plenty of people who move to these places end up not liking them very much. They become disenfranchised after believing promises that the towns never made.
Quaint little mountain towns supposedly offer the spiritual awakening that doesn’t exist in cities. There is a cleanness to be lived here that can’t be found anywhere else. This is where the latent intellectual and artist awaken, inspired. The very promise of eternal youth is forever an unspoken expectation.
The truth is that you have to be happy with your life before you get here. If that’s the case, you can be content. If not, you’re dreaming.
And it’s dreams that create many problems. It’s a common misconception that these places are made of money, but all those dollar bills are really dreams wanting to come true. When people throw cash around, it’s less for show than you think. Knowing only these towns’ reputations, it’s what some folks believe they are supposed to be doing.
That’s another thing: what we have to deal with, more than rumors of spendthrifts throwing away money, are expectations. They cause more trouble than the shortage of land.
What many people see of these towns rarely matches the pictures of them that are etched from myth in their imaginations. So they set out to change the places instead of changing themselves to blend with what they want so badly to be a part of. But, as our own pictures differ from reality, so the more do they differ from each other’s. The result is that we end up fighting about colors of paint, heights of buildings, the way to preserve a historic front on a modern store, keeping downtown vibrant without changing, and maintaining character while pricing out characters.
The infighting looks silly from the outside. And it looks silly to many people who call it home, too.
An ironic thing about these towns is that during the prosperous times, nobody sticks around very long. It was in the quiet years, between the loud booms of mining and skiing, that families took root and built homes for their grandchildren. I think, contrary to cliché, familiarity breeds contentment. When too many people are frantically searching for Nirvana in earthen soils, even the hallowed loam of places like Aspen and Vail, most end up suffocating in the ensuing dust cloud.
Yet, underneath a glittery surface seemingly too rough for reflection, a few are wise enough, or lucky enough, to get a glimpse at the real towns. They’re places where we earn our livings and spend time with friends. They’re places our kids go to school. It’s about Friday night football, Saturday morning skiing and St. Patrick’s Day dinners at the church. We nurse our sick, comfort our downhearted, care for the needy, and bury our dearly departed, too.
These places are real towns.
Roger Marolt (roger@maroltllp.com) is a lifelong Aspen resident who often wonders why.
