I have fallen completely in love with Butte, Montana. It’s on a hill, facing south. People live there. A freeway runs through it. Time is completely visible there. The buildings are fabulous. They are often empty. They are often deteriorated. They are often beautifully kept up. They are continuing very slowly. I want to live there. I would float with it above time. I would bake in the summer and freeze in the winter, and watch the sky arc left to right, over and over.
People have carved the hill behind Butte and tunneled thousands of miles under it. They’ve dragged its entrails out to make them into something else. The man at the Mineral Museum told me it’s illegal to process the treasure under Butte into metal now because of the toxic chemicals. What they do mine now, they send as crushed rock to China. Enormous shelves of the mines rise behind Butte. People completely changed Butte, and now they’re gone. The valley is there, the mountains are there, they are quiet.
It’s god’s country, not peoples’ country. But if I lived there, would the people rise to the forefront? Are they Red or Blue? Do they think much, or is it too hard? Would it begin to feel small? Could I garden? When I picture living there, I imagine simple choices. I could concentrate on what matters. I could begin to decompose into my elements.
But would I? And would that really be a good thing?
