6. The Butte

Chapter 6 of Accidental Alchemy

Imagine a town with a population of 1,400, nestled in a beautiful valley surrounded by wild, rugged, jaw-dropping mountains in every direction and as far as the eye can see. Snuggled up so close to the headwaters of the watershed, high up in the Rocky Mountains, it’s lucky to have numerous rivers and creeks flowing through and around it. The abundant water turns the whole valley a rich, deep green in the summer—and carpets the surrounding mountainsides with a spell-binding display of wildflowers. In winter, the valley and the town are blanketed in a deep, hushed layer of snow.

The town itself is just nine square blocks of quaint houses in various shades of blue, red and rich brown, huddled together into a picturesque scene screaming “cozy” to even the most hardened visitor.

The closest box store is thirty miles away; the nearest city, a five hour drive.

Dear one, if you’re having visions of “The Sound of Music,” you’re not far off.

That is The Butte. It’s where Jason and I moved our little family after our “great overdoing.”

We found a cozy little house right in town, and settled into the unique walking and biking rhythms of life in The Butte.

We walked or rode our bikes everywhere, like most people do in The Butte, even in the winter. We put studs on our tires so we could ride safely on snow and ice, and our boys rode their bikes to school even in sub-zero temperatures, sometimes in shorts, just because they felt like it. Mountain kids are like that.

We even made ski racks out of PVC tubes and fastened them to our bike racks so we could ride to the bus stop and hop on the quirky, hand-painted bus for the ten minute ride to the ski resort.

We hardly ever got in a car.

Jason and the boys gave me a townie for Mother’s Day that year—a kind of cruiser bike that is the favored way of getting around The Butte. It was a gorgeous light green with sunflowers painted on it, a wide white seat and white tires. It was love at first sight.

Running errands on my gorgeous townie was pure joy, not only because it felt so good to cruise through town with the wind in my hair and the mountain air on my face, but also because The Butte is so beautiful. It’s eye candy in every direction— both the human-made world and the natural world around it.

The main street through town is lined with colorful, historic buildings and cute storefronts. To the North, the white steeple of a historic church rises up behind the rooflines, an iconic feature of The Butte’s picture-postcard skyline. Benches and flower planters line the street, and in the summer giant overflowing flower baskets hang in front of every store. The alleys behind the main street are full of old mining cabins and barns, a reminder of the Butte’s colorful mining history. Wandering around the alleys is like going on a treasure hunt for historic cabins, hidden gardens, quirky signs and funky metal art.

And as if all that human charm isn’t enough, the town is flanked by two majestic mountains: the Butte itself, the massive sentinel that gives the town its name, and The Lady, the gentler and more feminine presence to the west.

But as beautiful as The Butte is, it’s the community’s quirkiness and playfulness that give it its unique charm. Sitting in the sunshine on a downtown bench, it’s not unusual to see someone walk by in a banana costume. Seriously. People in The Butte love dressing up. They dress up for ski races, bike races, the first day of the ski season, the last day of the ski season, any day of the ski season. They dress up for wild, pagan, locally invented celebrations. And often for no reason at all.

On a winter morning with lots of new snow, it’s common to see hand-written signs posted on stores and restaurants that read

POWDER DAY!
OUT SKIING
BACK BY NOON

Which everyone in town not only understands, but celebrates—except possibly the occasional grumpy out-of-towner desperate for breakfast. Fresh snow makes the whole town giddy with excitement—as do all things skiing, biking, and wilderness adventure.

The local currencies in the Butte—what everyone asks about while standing in line at the post office—are “getting out” and “sending it.” No one cares which college you went to, what professional achievements you may or may not have, or how dreadfully busy or stressed you might be (oh the relief! A balm to our exhausted, over-achieving souls!). What everyone really wants to know is “have you been getting out?” No explanation needed. Everyone knows “getting out” means going skiing, biking or adventuring in the wilderness on whatever type of gear you happen to favor.

But while “getting out” is important, what matters even more is “sending it.”

You can “send it” by launching yourself off a big rocky cliff on The Butte’s gnarly extremes—the steep, rocky terrain the ski area is best known for—or by traversing a “no fall zone” (fall and you are likely to die), to get to a ridiculously steep, narrow chute that you can only access by literally launching yourself in (known as “mando air.”). In the summer, you can “send it” by hurtling yourself on your mountain bike down rocky bits of trail that ought, by all accounts, to be unridable.

Whichever way you choose to do it, “sending it” means living large, with out-sized courage and a grand sense of adventure. It means getting the most out of life while the rest of humanity spins along on the hamster wheel of ordinariness and convention.

I had long been an avid skier and this all-in, ecstatic community celebration of skiing made me giddy. With our boys in tow—and eventually with our boys far ahead and us in tow—Jason and I threw ourselves joyfully into every kind of skiing: downhill, uphill, Nordic, and backcountry. You can imagine the state of our tiny garage with a family of four needing four pairs of skis each, not to mention the fleet of bikes required for summer adventures. And our garage was tame compared to most.

All that “getting out” and “sending it” made life in the Butte joyful and quirky, wild and adventurous. And—let’s be honest—masculine as fuck.

That decade of my life felt very much like I was standing tall, arms out wide, a huge smile on my face, leaning into the adventure, the joy, and wonder of it all. I felt like Kate Winslet in “The Titanic,”but standing on a mountaintop rather than on the prow of a ship, and leaning fiercely into the wind, snow and cold rather than towards the ocean.

I loved it.

But there was one thing missing, one thing that left me with a twinge of sadness in our first few months in The Butte. I thought our move meant giving up on my dream of being a professor—the reason I had spent five years in graduate school earning a doctorate.

But my assumption turned out not to be true. That dream found me anyway.

It happened while watching a kid’s ice hockey game during our first winter in the Butte—our whole family played ice hockey, so yet more gear in the garage. Standing there freezing my butt off, wearing my fattest puffy jacket and my big, fuzzy Elmer Fudd hat, I struck up a conversation with a fellow hockey mom. She was a professor at a small, vibrant university just 30 minutes from The Butte, and the director of their honors program. I found out that they were looking for an adjunct professor to teach honors courses—preferably a generalist with a background in democratic theory, philosophy, and education.

I couldn’t believe it. I think I stood there, mouth open, staring at her for a little too long. I was dumbstruck. I had moved to the heart of the Rockies, five hours from the nearest city, and, out of the blue (maybe literally since I was blue with cold), here was an opportunity to teach, to live a long-held dream.

I said yes, of course. What else do you say when miracles come knocking on your door?

For the next five years, I lived both my adventurous, outdoor dream life and my academic dream life. I taught philosophy, political science, Middle East studies, honors classes and even a research methods course. I proposed courses on all sorts of topics and the university, kindly, kept saying yes. I loved my students and dedicated myself to crafting exciting, innovative learning experiences that turned them on to new ideas and new possibilities. All while “getting out” as often as I could on my bike and skis in my beloved mountains.

Sadly, my work at the university came to an end when regulations were passed about professors teaching more narrowly in the departments that corresponded to their degrees. It made perfect sense, but I was teaching in four different departments—none of them Education (my “field”).

I was out of my dream job. So I invented a new one.

My fascination with horses had never waned. If you recall, dear one, horses were an important source of safety, comfort, and wonder in my early days in Lebanon. I had never lost the call to lose myself in their world, sink my hands into their silky manes, lean my head on their strong bodies and listen to their whispered wisdom. The loss of my university position was the nudge I needed to heed that call—or maybe a nudge from the universe to head in a new direction.

I spent a year training to be an equine guided coach—a coach who partners with horses to facilitate powerful learning experiences for people—and I finally learned why I had always been so drawn to horses, and how wise my little self was to anchor in their special presence. I couldn’t get enough of the magic of it, couldn’t get enough of them and their beautiful, wise world. It was a return to the quiet I so desperately needed after years of “getting out” and “sending it.” And I wanted to share the wonder and magic of it with others.

But for that, I needed horses and I needed space. Which is why, five years into our time in the Butte, we moved to a little ranch just south of town. It had a tiny log house lovingly built by a tall, skinny, older man named Bob—with just enough space for the four of us, and more than enough space for the herd of four horses I would adopt and pour my heart, soul and professional life into.

Over the next five years, I built a thriving little business, partnering with my herd to support people’s growth and learning. I painstakingly created a peaceful, inviting space, complete with corrals, a round pen, pastures and carefully placed rocking chairs for conversation, integration and journaling. The surrounding mountain landscape invited awe and reverence, while the little world I created invited peace, slowness and reflection. It was a beautiful combination and the work was deeply fulfilling.

I was lulled into a sense of safety and contentment. I thought things would go on like that for a long time. Or at least I hoped they would. I had built a life I loved and I may have been a little smug about it.

The universe had other plans and would soon wipe any trace of smugness right out of me.

It’s at that ranch, our little family squeezed into that little log house, with my herd of four horses on our beautiful ten acres of land, that my story begins. Dear one, I think you know enough about me now, and it’s time to dive into the deep end.

Or, more accurately, the dark end.

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us, 
Break all our teacup talk of God.

If you had the courage and 
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights, 
He would just drag you around the room 
By your hair, 
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world 
That bring you no joy. 

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly 
And wants to rip to shreds 
All your erroneous notions of truth 
That make you fight within yourself, dear one, 
And with others, 
Causing the world to weep 
On too many fine days. 

God wants to manhandle us, 
Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself 
And practice His dropkick. 

The Beloved sometimes wants 
To do us a great favor: 
Hold us upside down 
And shake all the nonsense out. 

But when we hear 
He is in such a “playful drunken mood” 
Most everyone I know 
Quickly packs their bags and hightails it out of town. 

~Hafiz

If you’re new here, welcome!

However you made your way here, I’m grateful you found me and happy to have you pop into my little world, whether it’s for a brief visit or a longer hangout around my campfire.

Accidental Alchemy is a serial memoir, so if you’re curious and have the time, I recommend starting with the Prologue and reading chapters in order for the full experience. You can access all chapters on my Substack homepage.

For the best reading experience, I recommend reading in a browser and on a larger screen. It makes it easier to enjoy the art and navigate through the chapters with the buttons at the bottom of each post.

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PS.. All art and poetry included in this memoir are my own unless I specifically credit another author or artist.