Level with me — there’s something about living in this city that’s extreme even for you. Yesterday’s post about a true Paleo restaurant blew up the YourBoulder Facebook page and website. We’re home to the most tough and tumble Xterra and extreme athletes on the planet. You know Xterra — for when doing a triathlon isn’t enough anymore.
But is it possible to be too Boulder?
From our well-attended weekly farmer’s markets to the cries when Trader Joe’s went in that TJ’s would face a tough battle in the Green Giant that is Boulder, we’re a city in love with healthy living, healthy food, and enjoying this valley surrounded by the Flatirons and varying majestic peaks. Could we truly tire of the ladies lunching next to us extolling the trials and tribulations of their nanny share and yet the other gaggle of friends oozing over the “must-have pour-over coffee” from one purveyor or another?
As a city that’s accepted the next great technology minds and that’s on the map for fostering tomorrow’s thinkers at CU — have we lost our acceptance and devolved into tolerance? Do we turn noses up at those who dare order a real burger over a quinoa variation and mock the ones who ran a mere five miles this morning in comparison to our 12. Up Sanitas. In the rain. With a baby strapped on your back (for “fun,” of course).
Do we stare at the bodies roaming the King Soopers parking lot as lost souls and less-than-human when we compare them to our kill-me-now-flavored battle for a single parking space at Whole Foods?
Have we forgotten what life is like outside of the Boulder Bubble, in places such as (gasp) Denver. Or maybe even Chicago (where I spend a great deal of my time). In cities where the lifestyles are more diverse, the costs of living lower, and the racial diversity (oh, come on — Boulder is pretty dang white) greater — is there something we could learn or be reminded of that would make living in a sweet ass town like Boulder even greater?
I’ve always felt that a great deal of Boulder’s beauty comes from the passion of its inhabitants. That we find pursuits to latch on to with a fully clenched jaw and refuse to let go.
I’m just wondering if we’re look at folks who are just as human as we are as less than human because they don’t measure up to this ideal that only we know about. It’s a beautiful ideal and part of what makes this city a gorgeous place, an incredibly clean place, and an inspiring place to live.
I’ve enjoyed the time I spend outside of the Boulder Bubble this year, while I could do without so many airports and free feel-ups by the TSA. Just something to think about as we head into the heat of summer where the outdoors will offer up the glory that is the Boulder, Colorado lifestyle.
It’d be a shame to miss out on a great conversation, a friendship, or hey — even a running partner — with an incredible human being on account of thinking they just weren’t quite…Boulder enough.
