june: ode to boulder

a monthly curation | a fond farewell to my boulder faves

spring on the pearl street mall, boulder 🌷

It’s June! Happy Pride month! Happy almost summer! In a couple weeks, I’m moving from Boulder to Denver, so it’s a month full of cardboard boxes for me on both sides - the packing and the unpacking all month long! 📦📦📦 I decided to use this month’s post as an ode to all my favorite Boulder things — for those of you who live nearby and for those who may visit someday. ⛰️

These round-up prism emails come out on the first day of every month, and they include my curations of music, art, fashion, beauty, and/or other areas of expression. The full content of the monthly posts (including an awesome monthly Spotify playlist!) is accessible only to paid subscribers, but everyone gets a generous peek below and can also unlock this post in a free trial to get the full experience.

Before we get into the beauty of Boulder, I need to give a shout out to Pride month! Last June’s round-up post was all about queer media, and it’s definitely worth a (re)visit, if you’re wanting to balance out the heteronormative media diet we are all force fed, regardless of your orientation. This month’s playlist (below) is Pride-ful, too! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

Onto my city! I have lived in Boulder twice in my adult life. The first time from 2002 through 2005 for graduate school at Naropa University. Then, after 13 years away (including living in two other states and having a kid), I moved back to Boulder in June 2018. This month, I’m moving just 30 miles south to Denver. While I feel excited to move to Denver, a city with much more art, culture, and diversity — and an actual midlife queer community!!! — there are aspects of Boulder I will certainly miss. Of course, I can get to Boulder in just over 30 minutes from my new house, but it won’t be just outside my sunshiny doorstep.

Note that this list about Boulder favorites isn’t like most lists you’ll see, as I’m just not outdoorsy. The majority of people reviewing Boulder will tell you about hiking Sanitas, mountain biking in spandex, going to Eldora to ski on the weekends, rock climbing, and other things I’ve honestly never heard of. I stick out like a sore thumb here because my idea of hiking is a leisurely walk on the flat trail by my house while listening to a podcast in my earbuds and sipping tea. And I’m not one who considers Patagonia fleeces and shorts to be yearround dinner attire. Others will talk about Boulder’s Buddhist community and otherwise spiritual vibes — and I totally used to be that person, as a Naropa alum, a transpersonal psychotherapist, and a Reiki master — but I don’t see my current self reflected in many of those spaces anymore. All of that said, here are the things I will miss about you, dear Boulder, Colorado:

1. The views: No matter where I am in Boulder, I can almost always see the flatirons. For those who don’t know, that’s what we call this little slice of the Rocky Mountain foothills that juts into the Boulder landscape, apparently looking like irons? They’re in South Boulder, but visible almost everywhere in town, including unglamorous spots like the Target parking lot. The view from my bedroom window (and my bathtub window and my roof deck) of my townhouse is stunning.

   

   view from my boulder bedroom window at sunrise

2. The Pearl Street Mall: Yes, Pearl Street has become corporate and too expensive, but I do love the quaint, walkable, fun little downtown area of Boulder. I love its spring flowers, its views, its murals, the art shows, parades, festivals, farmer’s market, and events, and the small businesses that are still surviving there, which I highlight later in this post. I love the Hotel Boulderado and the St. Julien (and the restaurants within them). There’s another more University-of-Colorado-centric “downtown” area called The Hill, but I don’t spend much time there because it’s mostly college kids.

3. The size: Boulder is manageable and easy. I can get from end to end in just over twenty minutes. I have my routines down. I am used to my grocery store, I know how to get hardware help from the guys in the green vests at McGuckin, and I know I can pop downtown and back quickly for a lunch or a night out. I have my doctors and other providers here locally. With moving, I’ll need to reestablish my groove and learn my new local haunts. I’ll also have to strategize my outings so they’re outside of Denver’s bonkers rush hour traffic.

4. The restaurants: Yes, Denver has a plethora of great restaurants for me to explore… and I will still miss living near some of my old favorites in Boulder: The Dushanbe Teahouse (a classic must-visit!), The Rio (yes, in Denver, too, but Boulder’s rooftop has the best views!), Rosetta Hall, Leaf, Salt, The Buff, The Cork, and The Kitchen Upstairs (okay, politically I can’t go to The Kitchen anymore, BUT their “upstairs” lounge specifically (I don’t love the downstairs restaurant really) has the best urban-esque, dimly lit, sexy, lounge, fireplacey atmosphere of any spot in Boulder. Sigh…) I love Ripple fro-yo. I love the little sipping chocolates at Piece, Love, and Chocolate. I think our oxygen bar has super unique drinks.