life ain't nothin' but a funny, funny riddle

Once upon a time, I was just dying to live in a city. Right smack in the middle of a city, in the middle of hubbub – a place where I could walk to shopping and conveniences, where entertainment was within easy reach, a place that teemed with cool. At the time I lived in my country house, on my acre of land on the pond, where white herons stopped to fish and turtles sunned themselves on the log near our pier, where the ducks and geese woke me each morning. And, alas, where you had to drive 15 miles to the nearest decent grocery store, where my children were plied routinely with Little Debbie snacks at school, and where we sometimes went to bed by the sound of gunshots.

I have my city life now. Say what you want about Denver (Lance Armstrong’s in town! Film at 10!), but it does exude cool. Picture this: a lithe woman in a tank top and cutoffs, with oversized goggles a la “Snoopy,” riding a Vespa with a dog in the sidecar. Only in Denver. On the first day of school, one of my daughter’s first-grade classmates came in with hair dyed green. At the King Soopers (which you East Coasters know at Kroger) a few blocks away, I’ve seen studly firemen who remind me of “Arrested Development’s” hot cops stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a lollipop-sucking man in silk pajama pants, oversized sunglasses, white-blonde hair, and a too-small T-shirt that said “Sugar Daddy.” It wouldn’t happen in Smithfield.

But what I didn’t think about in this quest for city yin was the inevitable yang: The noise and smog. Our bedroom window sits about 10 feet from a singles apartment complex with no air conditioning, and on summer nights when the windows are open, it sounds like the San Fernando Valley over there. Honestly, you have to be trying to have sex that loud. And because the mountains shield the city, the pollution of the Front Range pools here. One of my daughters is asthmatic yet outdoorsy; and it’s hard to tell her that no, we can’t go to the pool or play in the park because the air is thick and dirty, like a roux mopped off a busy floor.
After much soul-searching and discussion we have decided to investigate, of all things, a country suburb – only 20 minutes from the city but where you can have more space at a more affordable price, where there are good schools, where you can have horses and chickens if you want them. Where you can drive a few minutes to play in healthier mountain air, and where the only people we will hear having sex will be us.

I know, I get what I want, then I never want it again.