Mountain Barbies

The beautiful women are back in Super Wal-Mart. They reappear every year at holiday time and Spring Break here in our small central Colorado town of Salida. It’s an annual migration of the large SUV and flashy jewelry sort, accompanied by increased traffic and revenue (cha-ching!) in our tourism-based, somewhat economically depressed community.

On a recent run through our local big box superstore, I rounded an aisle and stopped - staring in disbelief and wonder. A stunning supermodel shopping here? Weird. I looked right, then left. Wait – another one over there. And there’s a third – a little bulgy, but definitely got the hair and fashion thing going on. Then it clicked – oh, yeah – it’s that time again. The perfectly made-up and manicured Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas beauties have infiltrated Colorado for ski season.

It’s not that my local women friends aren’t as attractive and just as - if not more so - fit than these southern ladies, it’s that they aren’t quite as “ornamental.” I ‘m not sure what those women look like without being all done up and no big hair going on, but I assume it’s less than the drop-dead gorgeous stereotype. I’m used to the natural look, so it’s a shock when these outsiders show up so enhanced.

Truth be told, one reason I live in a small, unassuming mountain town is that we don’t have the glitter or the glam that fashion and womens’ magazines promote. I don’t need to feel the pressure of having to look a certain way or live up to a certain feminine ideal. As a former Army officer’s wife, I’ve already had to deal with that sorority-type pressure. My former husband, a graduate of West Point, took some issue with my tie-dyes and torn jeans when we lived at Fort Leonard Wood in the back woods of Missouri, and bought me some “Officer Wife Outfits” to wear. I remember wearing them once, to make him happy. As a peace-promoting hippie chick and veteran of fifty plus Grateful Dead shows, the amazing thing is what I was doing married to a Republican and military man in the first place. (You can take the deadheads away from the Dead, but you can’t make them shave...)

Nowadays, I live comfortably unadorned and furry in Villa Groovy. It was a gesture of true friendship when I shaved my underarms to be in my good friend’s formal wedding party in Denver a few years back – a voluntary decision. I was all about the fuzz for my own outdoor (2nd) wedding fest, with my man who gets a haircut twice a year and thinks “natural” is sexy. Jack is a Colorado native who’s familiar with mountain chicks and fuzzy legs.

We live an insulated mountain lifestyle – getting dressed up is a huge deal here. I remember the two or three occasions that I’ve worn a fancy dress since I moved here 8 years ago – and one was my second wedding. My friends and I spend our days up on Monarch Mountain skiing or snowboarding in the winter or boating on the Arkansas River the rest of the year. Not to mention the daily dog hikes, snowshoeing or mountain biking with the girls, building our own homes and whatever it is we do to earn money to support our lifestyles. Not much time or cash left for pampering or manicures – and I’ve reached the point where I find it hard to even put sunscreen on my face – just feels unnatural, but necessary. Our “bling” is in the bank – or in buying necessities – such as food or propane. Our ten plus year-old vehicles may not be sexy, but they run.

It used to make me feel inadequate and somewhat uncomfortable to be in the presence of women who are more “appearance conscious” than me. I was right there with them in the eighties with my Lycra, mini-skirts and big hair. Growing up with the materialism and money of Long Island, I had neither; but damn, I could look hot out at the L.I. clubs with my girlfriends. As my friend Cathy May (who still looks like a Barbie even now – in the best possible way, of course,) said to the guys back then; “Hey, if you don’t want to be with me – well – it’s your funeral.” We were “it on a stick” and knew we had it going on – dancing on the bar in our skin-tight Lycra leggings and high heels, with our flat midriffs exposed, resplendent in our perms, showy baubles and the synthetic frosting of our faces.

My girlfriends here look at those photos of my L.I. days in disbelief, and then laugh their butts off. Strange to think that eyeliner, eye shadow, lipstick and gloss, as well as foundation, blush and concealer are all alien substances to me now. Very few of my women friends in Salida or Buena Vista even own make up, and now my idea of hairspray is a hat. We are the outdoorsy, athletic types, with easy-to-care-for hair, countenances clear of face paint, nails cut short and functional, into health, fitness and minimal fuss.

“Getting dressed up in Salida is wearing a closed toe shoe,” my good friend Brooke from my corporate days at IBM Boulder said on a recent visit here. She and her husband Brian like to switch gears, leave the city behind, and dress down in Crocs, jeans and fleece, while helping me with the barnyard chores. They look forward to the honking geese, chicken chasing, goat wrestling and long hikes in the sparsely populated and spectacular scenery of the San Luis Valley. “Come as you are” is the area theme – and it’s a welcome relief from big city pretenses and caring about appearances all the time.

I know it’s a cultural thing – and whenever I travel and go to conferences, I’m always impressed by the attention to detail these southern beauties present. Colorado mountain women (fortunately) aren’t held to the same “trophy” standards – we’re beautiful in our own earthy way. Crocs and Carhartts are cool – besides being comfortable – if not the height of fashion.

Now these “Stepford wives” types make me suspicious. I know from teaching them how to ski that they’re generally indoor girls from the city who have different priorities in life. But why the nails? How can you do things with daggers like those? (Can’t rock climb worth “poop”.) Why the layers of makeup? (Masking outer beauty to conform must be tiring.) The stiff coated hair? Is it a self-esteem deal? Where do they find all that time to primp? It’s an obvious difference on which we can’t relate.

Bottom line: I’m self-conscious when showy – they’re the show-stoppers. Let our men enjoy the eye candy – and then return to the inside and out beauty of their mountain mamas.

Peace.

Published in the Feb. 2006 Colorado Central magazine and in the Feb. 2007 volume of Basecamp Colorado.