Aspen Peak - Niche Media - Aspen living at its peak
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/513510
IllustratIon by DanIel o'leary There is Aspen as destination, Aspen as vacation, and even Aspen as an idea—but Aspen as a home? Wherever I travel and explain where I'm from, this is the question I am asked. My answer, at this point well-rehearsed, is a swift rebuttal that Aspen is not just some f lashy mélange of tourists and ski guides and hoteliers. Rather, it is home to real people—business owners, artists, athletes, parents, children—who have decided this is the place they want to be, all year long. In fact, I was one of the children raised in the Aspen Valley, a product of Colorado winter rituals: parents snapping skis to our feet as soon as we could walk, ski instructors telling us to wiggle our toes in our boots on especially cold days. I was an angst-ridden teenager bombing down Ruthie's Run with my pack of acne-pocked ski friends. I was a 20 -some- thing working my first job in journalism, making my way up Smuggler Mountain on a bike after work. But Aspenites have wandering souls. We bore easily. So many, like me, have journeyed off to other places, both far and near. It could be for weeks, months, or even years. I've taken my own sabbaticals in South America, Europe, and New York. Even as I write this from my current locale, in Louisville, a sleepy- eyed city on the edge of the South, f lanked by thoroughbred farms and bourbon distilleries, I think of my real home. I even dream of it. Just recently, I had a recurring dream of being in the North Star Nature Preserve, wading into a shallow creek. It was mid-summer, with snow- melt gushing down from Independence Pass, the aspen trees rippling out in the breeze. When I awoke, my stomach ached with homesickness. The Elk Mountains, the Roaring Fork River, the alpine ecosystem: This is the landscape of my childhood memories. And like most memories from those early, porous years, they stick around. They grow more vivid. I find I am lured back to Aspen with every passing year. Maybe it's a trick of memory. Or maybe the primacy of home becomes more apparent as we age. I'm not sure. What I do know, how- ever, is that Aspen always welcomes home its sons, its daughters, and even its newly minted residents. But most importantly, it won't hold a grudge if you decide to leave again. I've returned many times, to reju- venate, to reload, to reinvent—only to depart soon after to a new destination. So has my father. So have my friends. And each time, we've been greeted home by a community that gets it. They too know the intense urge of adventure and discovery. Maybe that's exactly why they decided to live in the mountains to begin with. I'm sure there will come a time when I'll happily relent, exhale, and return to Aspen for good. In the meantime, I'm grateful to have a hometown that understands it could be a while, because there's always more to see. AP You Can Go Home AGAin for award-winning radio/tv host and aspen émigré jonathan bastian, the memories of childhood will always call him home to the roaring fork valley. 192 aspenpeak-magazine.com Aspen InspIred...