The yard has a profusion of native plants and three lovely maple trees — plant-lovers will enjoy the space. I’m open to pets upon approval. Located within easy biking distance to downtown or to the university.

Welcome to my sweet urban cottage!

Rental details

• Monthly rent: $1,175. Includes all utilities except gas & electric.

• Security deposit: $750

• Pet deposit: $250 (upon approval of pets)

• One year lease, starting June 1

• Call (406) 546-3164 for appointment to view

Another view of the kitchen

Bedroom

Dining room / part  of living room

Living room

Autumn

Call (406) 546-3164 for more information or to make an appointment.

Late summer

Kitchen

More about the home:

• appx. 900 square feet

• two bedrooms, both with wood floors, one 10’ x 11’, the other 10’ x 8’

• large sunny kitchen

• large bathroom

• dining room with refinished wood floors

• living room with three large windows

• two storage areas - basement and garage

• deck

• fenced yard

• owner pays water, garbage and sewer

• renter pays gas and electric

• very energy-efficient home

• use of washer and dryer included

Location & Connectivity:

• quiet residential street
  

• ten minute bike ride to downtown Missoula and the University of Montana
  

• five blocks from the Good Food Store
  

• two blocks from city bus stop
  

• five minute walk to riverside bike path
  

• easy street parking

Bathroom

Summer

Spring

Relaxing...

Blanketflower in the yard

Either way, it's my new home -- that room with all the buttons and knobs and things you push to make Melissa Block and Audie Cornish and Robert Siegel come dancing out of the ether and land in your car or kitchen or ear bud.

This is a convoluted way of saying: I'm on staff at Montana Public Radio!

I'm hosting All Things Considered and Montana Evening Edition on Mondays and Fridays, and in a month or so I'll also be on Sundays from 6 a.m. to 1 pm. I''m filling in on lots of other shifts too.

Good folks. Good radio. Good stuff!

Amy,

I've watched you over the years since you were a musician in your late twenties in Missoula (though I fell of the bandwagon for a while in between, because of relocations and bad internet connections), and besides always being an interesting and talented artist, you've always been an interesting and gifted self-funder, from the days of your CSA to Patronopolis.

This is inspiration to an artist, photographer, writer who know too well the struggles of staying afloat.

What you do needs to be done on a larger scale, both for individual artists and for the arts themselves (though, frankly, there are probably too many anonymous arts-support groups and general crowdfunding operations already). The emphasis really needs on individual artists.

What is your input on the funding process, particularly for solo artists. You've always had elements to your plan that now have been picked up by popular crowdfunding, but you've always seemed to have a unique success.

That seems to be part of the person who is you and seems to fit with your style of creating. The last time I actually saw you in person you were sitting on the edge of the trade circle at the 2000 Rainbow gathering writing music.

What are your thoughts on the process today?

David Trotter

David,

First of all, thanks for all the compliments.

Secondly, I don't remember that moment at the Rainbow Gathering, but I do remember being there, and I'm so glad I got a taste of that whacky and wonderful world!

Now to your questions.

I guess I want to start by dispelling any misconceptions you may have. I have struggled financially to a kind of ridiculous degree. I am still not anywhere close to where I want to be on that front, or need to be to feel secure. My reasons for being perpetually poor are complex and in my opinion have just as much (or more) to do with psychological baggage than with societal stuff. I don't want to go into that further here, but I needed to say that much.

All of this is to say -- I get the impression from your letter that you think I've got it dialed somehow, and unfortunately, I do not. The level of financial instability and stress that I've accepted as normal is unhealthy. I have extended my resources of time, effort, ideas and energy without paying adequate attention to replenishment. I've left the spigot on the outflow open wide, while often the inflow tank has been just barely more than dry. In many ways, I haven't taken good care of my basic needs.

It's delightful to be writing this in the past tense. I feel like I am on the cusp of change in this area. I'll put it to you straight: I want to make more money. And I feel I am smart enough and skilled enough and hard-working enough to start making more money. So I'm going to.

This reality check about my financial situation is not meant to discount the success I have had in fundraising for my work, or to poo-poo the generosity of my incredible community of supporters. Not at all! The purchases and gifts and loans and grants and donations I've received have been absolutely essential to my ability to make art. Because people have chosen to support me over the years, I have been able to feed and house myself, and keep working on creating things. This is the part you're interested in, I know -- not my financial difficulties, but the ways in which things have worked out. I just didn't want to get into that without making it clear that it's been herky-jerky, unstable, and often frighteningly close to the bone. Which, again, is not to diss one penny I've been given.

So, when it has worked, how has it worked?

My mind goes to 1999 in San Francisco. I think my approach to receiving support -- even the awareness that such support was possible -- grew out of performing on the street there. It was such a basic, simple exchange: I opened my guitar case and started singing songs, and if people liked it, they dropped money in. They weren't getting anything concrete, they weren't buying a CD or even (usually) hanging around for a whole song. They were just plunking some change or a few bucks into my case and saying, essentially, "keep doing this."

That's how I took it anyway. It was just kindness. Maybe they felt like my music brightened their day for a second, maybe they felt sorry for me, who knows.

The fact that we were so anonymous to each other is kind of the point. They weren't buying into any sort of "celebrity" b.s., they weren't supporting me because someone else had shined me up and told them I was important. We were just human beings out on the street, sharing a moment, exchanging something intangible for something concrete. That was my first "crowdfunding" experiment.

When I came back to my sister's place after an afternoon of busking, we'd count the money on her floor and giggle with delight (she was letting me crash with her for free, another hugely supportive factor). People were saying YES to the idea of me singing and playing songs in public. They were voting for my artistic life with their nickles and dimes and sometimes (waa-hoo!) their twenty-dollar bills. And with their smiles and waves and words of encouragement. I especially loved it when they danced a little as they walked by, or when some kid stopped about three inches from me and just stared, with a face that said, what the heck is this person doing standing out here singing -- is this even legal?

I wish I could thank every single one of those good souls. What a difference they made.

Extrapolating from those experiences, I would say the success I have had in finding financial support for my work (maybe) comes down to:

1. Opening up. If I'd sung in my closet all day and no one would have supported me.

2. Being brave. My hands often shook as I opened my guitar case, and it took a big internal push to strum that first chord, and sing that first note.

3. Being imperfect. Oh, the imperfection! Forgotten words, forgotten chords, choking and spitting and coughing and suddenly needing to pee. The list goes on and on. And the environment was loud and weird and not really conducive to street-singing. If I'd waited to be perfect, or for the perfect place/time/situation, I'd still be waiting.

4. Being receptive. I looked people in the eye. When they smiled at me, I smiled back. When they stopped and listened, or threw money in my case, I felt and expressed big gratitude. When they wanted to talk, I let them (to a point...sometimes I had to cut it off if it went on forever or became awkward). I tried, and try, to recognize the relational element of any kind of artistic exchange. I'm not pushing a Big Mac across a counter here. There's something deeper and more soulful going on. (But also, this doesn't mean I want to date you/be your therapist/hear your life story -- finding that balance can be tricky!)

5. Being focused. If I went out to make music, I made music. I didn't smoke pot or get drunk or wander around by the seashore or go shopping. I made music. I took it seriously. It meant something to me. I think people could feel that.

6. Being frugal. I counted and kept every penny. If I bought a bowl of clam chowder to keep me going in the midst of a street session, I kept track of how much it cost, and I didn't let myself do that more than once a week. 

7. Being persistent. Some days I made $20. Some days I made $120. It was completely random. I didn't let the twenty dollar days get me down too much. I kept showing up.

8. Luck. And the grace and generosity of others.

All of these things apply to my other attempts to gather support for my work, too.

I hope that helps!

Thanks for writing David.

a brief overview of the Patronpolis

What is the Patronopolis?

The Patronopolis is a unique crowd-funding experiment. Members are helping to fund my creative process over time, directly supporting whatever songs, stories or other things I make. They get the inside scoop on my projects and weigh in when I need feedback and ideas. 

How do I join?

Click here to make a tax-deductible donation and join this community of arts-funding revolutionaries! Donations of any amount are welcome -- so far they've ranged between $5 and $5,000. Thank you!

When was it founded?

The Patronopolis was born in the spring of 2011.

How many members are there?

As of spring 2014, the Patronopolis has around 260 members.

What's up with the weird name?

I invented it! It's a mash-up of "polis" (community) and "patron" (supporter). The idea is that anyone can be a patron of the arts, and that art-making is ultimately a community endeavor. It rhymes (sort of) with "acropolis."

Are you going to include other artists in the Patronopolis?

I'm not interested in being the organizer or administrator of a collective -- I want to make stuff! If other artists want to copy the idea and adapt it to their own needs, fantastic.

How do I unsubscribe?

You can opt out of Patronopolis communiques at any time. Just send an e-mail to patronopolis at gmail dot com, and put "unsubscribe" in the subject line. I promise you will not be hurting my feelings.

These are some of the questions and conundrums I'm chewing on in my novel.

Sixty-five million years ago, our tiny mammalian ancestors were overjoyed when an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. The evolutionary bounce-back from mass extinction means that life on Earth will do just fine, thank you very much. But that recognition forces us to see the real challenge of climate change.

The danger is not to the planet but to our civilization on the planet.

This uber-technological civilization we have constructed so quickly is a network of networks (energy, transportation, economic, information and social networks). We all rely on those networks to keep food appearing in grocery stores and electricity flowing into the plugs in walls. To scientists studying the overlapping webs that define civilization, it has become clear how vulnerable these systems are to not just risk but hyperisk — the cascade of failures that can be triggered by even small disruptions. Thus, the real dilemma we face is keeping this machine we call civilization working in a rapidly changing natural world.

The emphasis on reducing climate change is a question of sustainability. What we often miss is that what we're trying to sustain is us. The rest of the planet will just go along on its merry way....

I'm thinking it might also behoove me to make a few notes on what I read, to help me remember what I learned and liked (or didn't). I'm going to try making those notes here, in front of god and everybody, because...well, it might be a motivator for actually taking the time to assemble my thoughts. Maybe it will spark some interesting discussions. Maybe I'll come back to them and look them over more often. We shall see.

I am going to keep it in very note-ish form. Sentence fragments, bullet points, etc.

Jumping right in then, with some things I learned from:

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• what the Biafran War was
• having more than one main character can a) work, b) be cool, c) can be confusing for the reader...but the reader can be OK with that
• watching things fall apart is interesting. horrifying, scary, sad, and yes, interesting too. a novel that goes from everything being sort of alright to everything being sort of horrible can really hook me and keep me reading. i wasn't dissatisfied with or put off by the continual downward spiral. and i don't think this is just because it's the kind of novel i'm writing. it worked because it felt so true.
• giving every character a chance to be human, to be wonderful and awful and usually just sort of something in the middle, makes me trust the author and open up more deeply to her story. and i mean every character. no one is saint or sinner here, and nuance emerges in even the most minor of players. it didn't feel forced or gimmicky, either. it feels like this is how Adichie sees the world.
• Chimamanda is perhaps one of the most awesome names in the universe, and i may need to use it to name a future pet or child. another may need to be named Ngozi.

Next up:

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

• dialogue tags ('he said,' 'she said,') are almost entirely unnecessary
• never using dialogue tags or other dialogue punctuation can be confusing for the reader...and sometimes this reader was sort of annoyed by it. i'd rather not spend my time counting lines to figure out who is speaking.
• McCarthy's men are weirdly non-verbal and emotionally unexpressive, and are perhaps a different species from me.
• description can be something to delight in, something to play in, something to luxuriate in. i'm afraid of over-describing, because it seems like such a newbie or hackish thing to do. but damn, reading good description is a joy. i have a feeling that McCarthy loves writing it as much as i loved reading it. i also have a feeling that's this is why it works so well. when he does it, he surrenders into and really lets himself go. or at least it feels that way. the results are some of the most magical portions of the book, at least to me.
• another favorite bit: when, toward the end of the book, John Grady recounts the entire story that he's spent the last couple hundred pages living in about three paragraphs to some attentive, helpful mexican kids. i liked this because it reminded me of telling parts of my own life story to various kids i met in peru and ecuador. and i liked it because i was impressed with McCarthy's ability to recap his whole action-packed novel so succinctly through his main character. it almost seemed like McCarthy was saying, "you think i'm economical with my words? listen to this guy!"
• McCarthy seems to speak very good spanish.

I learned more than these things through both of these books, but that's enough for now.

So yes. Reserve & Green, which started out in my imagination as a musical years ago, is now living in my imagination, and on paper, as a novel. A novel-in-progress.

I write on paper first, and transfer things to the computer later, re-writing and editing as I go. Pushing a pen around on paper feels really different than typing, and makes my brain work differently.

I've never written a novel before. I'm learning how to do it by doing it. In practical terms, what that means is that most mornings, I wake up and write for several hours. Also, I learn by reading. (Half of a Yellow Sun just arrived through inter-library loan today -- thank you Choteau Public Library!). Sometimes I review bits of helpful advice from smart people (thank you Ali!). And I attended a writer's conference recently, which I intended to blog about by now, but I haven't, partly because it feels more important to write than to write about the process of writing.

That being said, I do want to do some documenting of this process. Why? I think it helps it feel more real, more like something is truly happening, to share. Less lonely. Also, a lot of people have contributed money and energy and hope and goodwill toward this project, and I feel I owe them (you!) some info about what's happening with it (thank you Patronopolis!).

And then I think it's just part of my deal. Sharing the process, I mean. It's part of what I feel I'm supposed to do as a musician/writer/person who makes stuff. Because...it might help you feel more empowered to create, too. Because making, building, expressing, creating -- in words, in pictures, in wood, in stone, in song -- is crucial to feeling alive, to being human, and although we're bombarded with information on how to greedily and gleefully consume what other people make (Jiffy Pop, gasoline, Coors) but it's much harder to find any instructions or encouragement on how to make our own stuff.

I can't offer any instructions. But maybe watching me claw my way through this process will provide some sort of encouragement. To you and to me.

Go Fort Benton!

So...how to document the process of writing a novel? How to saw out a window for you, and put up some fluttering curtains that make you want to look through it? (If I don't add some window dressing you'll be bored silly, I promise. Who wants to watch someone sitting and thinking and scribbling and staring off into space?) As I looked around my writing nook the other day, closing up shop after a solid stint in the chair, I thought: maybe some of this stuff I have tacked up around me would be interesting to people.  Quotes and notes, artwork and ideas. Artifacts. Gleanings. Little things that shed some light on what I'm doing, and how I'm doing it.

Maybe.

Here's a sampling:

I went to the pool today, the heat finally convincing me it was time to try out the lap swim. Toward the end of the hour, I noticed a group of kids gathering around the entrance. After we boring grown-ups were done swimming back-and-forth in straight lines, the pool would re-open at 7:00 for another two hours of all-ages mayhem. It was 6:53. Choteau's kids were swarming outside the fence, ready and waiting.

Something struck me as unusual about the scene, but I couldn't put my finger on it until I was outside, heading toward my bike. A blue minivan pulled up next to me. The sliding door opened, and children of various ages waited to jump out, starting with a snow-blonde four-year-old boy in jet blue trunks. "Go on," I heard the driver's voice, female, say, when he hesitated. He launched himself out of the vessel, followed by a posse of older siblings, and then the van drove away -- not down the street, to find a parking space, but away. Home, presumably, or maybe to the grocery store.

That's what was unusual about the assemblage of kids hovering by the door. They were just...kids. Dozens of them, toddlers to teens, and not a parent in sight. On my way out of the pool house, I had seen a man in his fifties and a few older teenagers stationed behind the entrance desk. And that was it. For this next two hours, the whole herd of pre-pubescent boys and girls now streaming into the pool would be almost totally unsupervised. Totally free, and totally fine. No parents required. (Presumably some of the teens inside were lifeguards, and would soon be sitting in the chairs designated for that purpose. I didn't stay to find out.)

I wasn't sure which was more strange, the fact of this freedom, or how surprising it was to me. Operating outside the watch of my parents was not unusual in my own small-town childhood. But that was decades ago, and my more recent experiences with crowds of kids has always included crowds of parents, too. As these children careened into the pool with the universal, timeless sounds of hot kids released into cool water -- shouts and splashes and happy screams -- something like a sense of rightness, of OK-ness, flooded up in me. The adults were off doing whatever it is adults do, and the kids were free to manage their own affairs here at the pool. Not abandoned, or ignored. Just trusted. This world was safe enough for that. It felt good.

As I walked my bicycle across the grass, heading for the sidewalk, I had to dodge a kaleidoscope of smaller rides, with names like Dynaback, Kazam, and Titan Flower Princess. From the number of bikes littering the ground, it appeared that most of the kids had arrived on their own power. After the racks had filled up, they had simply been dropped wherever their owners had happened to screech to a halt. No locks, of course. Like the kids themselves, bikes are unfettered here.

~

Absence of supervision is not the same thing as a lack of attention, though. If Choteau is anything like my hometown, there are plenty of people familiar with who should be where, doing what, keeping an eye out. It's the original social safety net; sometimes oppressive, sometimes helpful.

And it's not just adults who are on the watch for something, or someone, out of place. Just last week, for example, I was investigated by one of Choteau's observant young citizens. I was out for a sunset walk, an unidentified oddball, loose on the streets, when I heard a shout.

"Hey! Who are you?"

I looked around. "Me?"

"Yeah! Who are you?"

My interrogator looked to be about eleven. His friend, a smaller and more covert detective, concentrated on his skateboard. "My name is Amy, " I said, smiling and trying not to laugh. "What's yours?"

"Jonah. I haven't seen you around before," he explained.

"I'm new."

He nodded, taking this in. "Do you know who lives in that house?" Jonah pointed. "They're new, too."

"Nope. I live on the other side of town." Having rarely encountered people he didn't know, he logically assumed that all of us new people, like migrating birds, must be of a flock. "Well, nice to meet you," I said lamely, and began to walk off.

"You too!" he hollered. And then he followed up with, "I'm teaching him to skateboard!" I looked back, feeling like he was offering me something with this declaration, like I had passed his test. Jonah's co-conspirator shook his head a little, grimaced.

"Cool!" I said, unable to keep from laughing, finally, and then they both laughed too. What was cracking us up? The weirdness of our conversation, maybe, and the surprise of a connection in it. It was delightful. These boys didn't see themselves as unsupervised. They saw themselves as supervising me. This was their playground, their neighborhood, and they were keeping their town safe out in the semi-darkness of the summer night.

~

I'm under no illusions that Choteau, or any place, is perfect, or that its children are perfectly free. I imagine if you're a gay or lesbian kid, or come from a non-Christian family, or exhibit other forms of being different here, things could feel very constricted, or even scary. As I get to know this place better, I'm sure I'll learn things that will disturb my first impressions, in the way that any relationship grows more complex over time. Knowing this, I'm trying to absorb as much as I can with the naiveté of the new-comer, and enjoy the short period I have to see through fresh eyes.

From that perspective, the freedom of the children here stands out. It's not just at the pool -- all over town, pods of kids tear around on their bikes, helmet-less and totally engrossed in their own worlds. Small herds of pre-teens walk and whisper and giggle. The other day a huge pick-up truck turned onto Main Street, driven by a young man so small I could see only his eyes and forehead over the steering wheel. He waved at me and drove confidently on.

Observing them, it strikes me that the numbers of unsupervised children and the types of activities they engage in could be a way to measure the overall wellness of a place. Any community could do it. Just as we count birds or test the water quality as a way to determine the health of our ecosystems, we could take note of how many kids are roaming semi-wild among us, free to make their own play, solve their own problems, do their own thing. I'm not sure what this study would tell us. Something about our own adult insecurities, perhaps? The fears, actual and imagined, that we are living with, and passing on?

I don't know. All I have is my gut feeling that if a community is safe enough for its children to play together, out-of-doors, without causing trouble and without much supervision, then there is something working about that place, in spite of its imperfections and limitations. It's a form of wealth, a gift to the next generation, to be able to trust that most people, most of the time, are decent, and everything will probably be alright if we just don't worry about it too much. In Choteau, I'm happy to see kids receiving that inheritance -- that is to say, playing. Together. Outside. Unharmed, unencumbered, unsupervised.

I went to the sheep show today. It was in the Weatherbeater, the big indoor arena on the edge of town. It was hot, biking over. I leaned my ride against the corrugated tin wall, next to the sign that says, "Horses enter through rear doors," and traded the glare of the June sun for the dim, stuffy air inside, wondering if there was an entry fee. There wasn't.

"White shirts: use, clean and return" read a sign hanging over a rack of long-sleeved, collared button-downs. A few rickety bleachers. A hushed tone, as the farm families gathered. Suddenly, I felt dizzy, and it was hard for me to keep walking forward. I felt like I'd walked into a postcard from my own childhood. Green clovers on white backgrounds. Kids getting numbers pinned onto their shirts. Sturdy little lambs calling, "ma, ma, ma." (That's "ma" with a short "a;" rhyming with cat, or rat.)

I'd seen a few sheep shows since leaving Iowa, but always in bigger venues, on a scale many times greater than this. The Choteau sheep show was just as tiny, comfortable, polite and unexciting as those from my own childhood. I was riveted.

The judge was tall and youngish and serious-faced, but with the kind eyes and gentle demeanor of all the best 4-H judges. He was perfect, actually. No flirting with the girls or excessive "buddying up" the boys. His whole tone and demeanor communicated two core messages: this is important business, and you're doing a great job at it. I loved how he ran the show, all the way from his pre-show pep talk to his hand-shake with every young person at the end of each round.

Watching the first group of kids enter the ring and line up their lambs, I realized I know 4-H the way some people know the Catholic mass -- perhaps with little comprehension of or interest in the broader organization, but with an intense love for the soothing, comforting, familiar details of the ritual. Shirts tucked in. Hair smoothed back. Set your lamb's posture. Keep your eyes on the judge. A 4-H sheep show is like a wedding, or a prom dance; it's a performance we put on for ourselves. There is no clear line between presenters and audience; everyone is on stage, everyone has a part to play. The kids, the lambs, the judge, the families watching from the bleachers, the teenagers advertising pizza for a dollar a slice in bored voices over the microphone, the crackling, feedback-prone microphone itself.

The basic tenets of the 4-H sheep show are as follows. It will be hot. There will be flies. At least one lamb will resist entry into the ring, causing its young handler to struggle, and eliciting a ripple of concerned, kind laughter from the crowd. And there will be at least one kid who will break your heart. He or she will tussle with an unruly lamb with determination, or stand proudly next to a skinny, unimpressive specimen. A strand of her hair will come loose from her pony tail, the tail of his shirt will work its way free from the back of his pants. You will want them to win, and they won't.

Today it was number 146 that got me first. It was the senior show, the high school kids, and he was tall and awkward and earnest. He couldn't get his lamb to spread out and straighten its back, and this humped-upness combined with the sheep's white face made it look prematurely aged, or like an old-lady ewe trying unsuccessfully to pass herself off as an ingénue. Everything about him said underdog: his unhelpful creature, his poorly-tied black bow tie, and his large-eyed, open face. The sheep's scrunched back was echoed by the boy's own as he reached down to adjust his lamb, over and over. He must have been six feet tall or more, and it was a long reach down to the lamb's head, which he valiantly tried to keep lifted and pulled forward. It was no surprise when both champion and reserve went to two sleek-haired sisters with sparkles on their jeans. They wore gingham shirts rather than the standard white, and their little Suffolk lambs were perfect. I didn't care for them much.

The juniors came next, with one girl smiling so brightly throughout the ordeal that she began to look slightly demented. There are official rules for 4-H shows, handed out in books with plastic-ring binders. I vaguely remember a rule about smiling while in the ring. I imagined this girl had read the same rule, and was trying very, very hard to follow it. I wondered if I had looked like that at her age. I don't remember who won that round, but it wasn't her.

The youngest group, the pre-juniors, were dwarfed by their lambs, and noticeably less able to control them. Two skinny men with clipboards who had been hovering on the edge of the ring throughout now stepped forward to help contain the stubborn beasts. These men are also a 4-H sheep show mainstay. Like altar boys, they are in view but not in the limelight, unless called upon for understated acts of heroism. "We had a runner earlier," an old lady sitting near me volunteered. "It just busted right outta here -- made it all the way to the new swimming pool, way over by the Methodist church." With a doubt, it was these men who'd helped round up the rebel and return it to its owners, waving off any thanks or recognition. One of them moved in now to assist a small girl whose lamb was pulling backward harder than she could tug it forward. "We just gotta get him out of reverse," the man said quietly to her, and the crowd chuckled, repeating the comment to one another. A 4-H sheep show is one of the only public events I've attended where a comment spoken in a quiet voice to a child can be heard throughout an arena. Other than the ma-ing of the lambs, it's a hushed affair.

One girl, the littlest, kept her face trained so carefully on the judge, and leaned her small weight so heartily and confidently against her lamb, that I felt sure she would be chosen the showmanship winner. All the kids were trying their best, for sure, but there was something strong in her that I felt set her apart. She was intensely present, and she moved deftly around her lamb as the judge paced back and forth, ensuring that it was always the animal, not herself in the judge's view. The judge took his time, paying the kids the respect of taking it seriously, evaluating them as carefully as he had the older groups. I was sure he would choose my favorite, and when he didn't, and I watched her face go brave, I thought I might cry. She was last in line as they began to move out of the ring. "That lamb must weigh twice as much as that last little girl!" I said to the lady next to me.

"That's my grand-daughter," the woman said.

"Well I thought she did really well," I said.

"That's her sister's lamb," said the woman. "Her own lamb died last night. They went out late to check on it in the barn and it was just dead." She said this in a matter-of-fact way, nothing to get too upset about. "Lambs just die sometimes," she said.

Earlier, during the junior's show, the judge had taken a moment to demonstrate "the best way to show off the brisket" -- a reminder that these were not pets, but food. Lambs just die, indeed. Knowing and accepting this is embedded into 4-H life.

A few generations ago, almost everyone knew what it was to nurture and then kill an animal. The death involved in sustaining life was not abstract, or remote; we knew ourselves to be the executioners, we literally had the blood on our hands. As we decrescendo away from our agrarian roots, some people find the notion of children learning to care for and then kill animals distasteful, while others idealize the past, projecting a sense of superiority over those city slickers who never had to muck out a stall, and imagining that we were somehow more noble and pure way back when.

Neither extreme feels right to me. I don't think my few years of raising, showing and selling sheep made me more callous or more noble. I know the experience affected me, but it's not easy to fully describe the effects, let alone assign a moral value to them. In some ways, raising sheep gave me great love and respect for the animals-- for their toughness, their instinctual mothering abilities, and the infectious joy they sometimes demonstrated. I remember watching troupes of lambs running with total abandon from one end of a spring-green pasture to another on wobbly, gangly legs, and sitting in the barn with the flock as they settled into the straw at the end of the day, nestled into each other, radiating peace. But I also remember them annoying the hell of me, and even scaring me. Explosions of snot hitting my face. The sharp hooves of a flock of hungry ewes trying to tip my grain bucket. The unprovoked brutality of rams, directed at me, or at their own defenseless offspring. Sheep can be very sweet and unbelievably stubborn, they can evoke laughter and rage. They are, I suppose, like us in many ways. Not simple.

Maybe that's what 4-H gave me, ultimately: an awareness that there are no easy answers. And maybe that's why, as I watched that little girl pulling her sister's lamb out of the ring, the ghost of her own dead lamb following behind them, I was so happy for her, and so sad.

Some people choose to work hard. 

 Rosie has both qualities.

I've had the honor of making music with her and being her friend for seven years. When I met her, as an 8-year-old, she already had that magic combination of humility and confidence, natural gifts and determination to develop them. As a Coyote Choir and Wolf Pack member, as a singer, songwriter, percussionist/drummer, guitar player (and now ukelele too!), as the lead in the workshop productions of Reserve and Green and as a character actor in Hellgate High School's Our Town, Rosie always throws her whole self in. Watching and listening to her, you can feel it. Her total commitment pulls you in, opens you up. She's always risking something, because she's always trying her best. It's so inspiring to me, and instructive.

I encourage you to check out her YouTube channel, and especially to watch and listen to her new song, Lullaby. Lyrics and music, all vocals and instrumentals, and all engineering by Rosie herself.

Wow.

Within minutes of our arrival, I heard my favorite bird song. A Swainson's thrush. Liquid and up-rising; a strange, DNA-shaped sound, like two water-flute strands, twisting up and away. I didn't know if I'd find them here in the wind-blown, dry, mostly treeless plains. Around Missoula, I associate them with Rattlesnake Creek and the Bitterroot canyons. Wet, woodsy places. But here it was, singing to me from the trees in our yard. It stopped me, held me still for a moment. Even with two pick-up trucks and one U-Haul waiting for disembarking. I heard it a few more times that first week, but not since.

Birds are happy in Choteau, and happy to let everyone know it. Especially at dawn. Mourning doves. Robins. Gulls. (Gulls? Yes, gulls.) Ravens, crows, magpies, flickers, and many other chatterers whose names I don't yet know. On an early-evening run at Freezeout Lake, I set off a cacophony of alarm calls that reminded me of traffic jams in Latin American cities, where each car horn is rigged to make a different kind of impatient, insistent sound. Long-beaked stilts, avocets and curlews buzzed startlingly close to me, while yellow-headed blackbirds cheered them on from the cattails. "Sorry! Sorry!" I kept saying under my breath, but I couldn't make myself leave their brackish, magical world, even though they clearly wanted me out.

Strong, silent types abound here, too. Pelicans and cormorants, golden and bald eagles. Great Blue Herons occasionally flap lazily over the town, and just outside of it, raptors of all kinds wait on fence posts and hover over fields.

The plains on this high plateau may be mostly un-treed, but Choteau itself is an oasis of cottonwood, aspen, willow, spruce, lilac, chokecherry and a host of other branched beings. From the air it must look like an island in a sea of grass and stone. Maybe because trees are so rare here, I can't help but feel that these are extra-happy to be alive. Like a mob of kids at a rock concert, they raise their arms to sway and swoon. Tough, wild and lovely. They sing along with the wind, a million miniscule leaf-voices blending into one breathy hum. It's oceanic; crests and troughs of a low, almost-constant chant. The bird-song layers on top of it, flutes and oboes fluttering over the cellos.

And then there are the lawn-mowers. People here really get into their lawns. It's hard to be outside and not hear one somewhere. Cars and trucks, too of course, but in surprise fits and starts -- not the sad, constant musack of a major highway. In our road-littered country, it's rare to not have to edit an interstate out of the soundscape. My ears are grateful daily. Sometimes there's a train, and every once in a while, an airplane, but mostly they're so distant that only contrails announce their presence.

I think my favorite human-made sound here is the noon whistle. Every weekday, reliably, sweetly, it howls out to the village. I think of medieval church bells, Muslim calls to prayer, and my Iowa hometown -- the only other place I've lived that sent out a community-wide edict with that shrill little shout. "This is what we do now," it says. "We were all working, and we need to stop and eat now, and then we'll get to work again." So much geniality and common ground in the noon whistle! It assumes we are all in this together. Or reminds us that we are.

I don't know if anyone actually abides by the whistle, or even notices it much. But I love it, and feel welcomed into the fold by its impersonal, all-encompassing holler. Often, it marks the end of my morning writing session, or at least prompts me to stand up and stretch, maybe get another cup of tea. I want to use it for some other kind of ritual, too. Time to step outside and look at the sky, maybe, or think of one thing for which I am grateful. Or bust out a hot dance move.

Another relic from my small-town past: church bells announcing the hour, and sometimes launching into entire hymns. Like magic, there they go now, as I write this. I guess that means 6 p.m. is the full onslaught. Noon whistle to remind us to eat. Evening bells to send us home singing. I recognize this one...."Rock of Ages, cleft for me." Comforting, communal sounds, the church bells, the dawn chorus. Even if you're not religious, not a bird.

Other, wilder communities encircle us. Bryn heard them the other night -- the passionate, emphatic yipping of coyotes in the darkness. I woke up when their domesticated cousins rose up in response. From inside warm kitchens, behind wire fences, and from the ends of chains in the chilly black, the town dogs awoke, braced themselves, threw back their heads and opened their throats. I could see them all in my mind's eye, drinking in the fierceness from just beyond the village edge, as thirsty for that wildness as they were threatened by it. The coyotes yipped and called, proud hold-outs against our domination. Persecuted for over a century, they persist. "We are still here!" they shout and sing. And the town-dogs stand up and say, "Yes! Yes! Yes!

 Round Eleven

• Prompt: "a character finds something he or she has no intention of returning"
• Story: "Twenty-Three" (written May 2013)

Twenty-Three

Just because he had them, it didn't mean he was using them. She knew that, she wasn't dumb.

But he had a box. And it was open.

A box. How weird was that? A box of 24. Did he seriously think he was going to have sex 24 times in the near future? Please.

She hadn't been snooping. She was trying to find his old backpack, which he never used anymore. He would have said yes if she'd asked him for it, but he wasn't home, so she didn't ask. She just went into his room and looked. It wasn't in his closet, so she reached her arm under his bed.

And that's how she found them. A little chain of four first. She knew what they were, even before she found the box. She wasn't an idiot.

Once she was sure she had found them all she counted them. No one was home, but she closed the door to his room anyway.

Five little chains of four, and one that had only three. 23. The box said "24" on the front.

So he had taken one.

Had he used it?

It was entirely possible that he had used it.

It was laughable, too cliche for words. Her 17-year-old brother, stashing a box of condoms under his bed. She thought he was more original than that. Hadn't he always made fun of the meat stick jockstrap assholes who walked around with these things in their pockets, denting the butts of their jeans, sending out a signal to all the "lucky ladies" that they were ready and willing and able to take action. And without any complications. Babies, diseases. You know. He hated those guys. He was so much cooler than them. Or so she had thought. So she had been led to believe.

So who was his lucky lady?

Her stomach tightened. She had never even seen him hold hands with anyone, let alone kiss someone, let alone....this. He'd gone to prom with a gang of nerds and goths, all of them had dyed their hair purple for the occasion. One girl had even shaved her head.

God, was it her? The shaved head girl? Her name was Lisa or something, but she said to call her L.

"Just L? Like the letter?"

"Yeah, or 'el,' like 'El diablo'" the girl had answered, smiling.

"Cool!" she'd responded.

But maybe it wasn't cool at all. That girl shaved her head, but not her armpits, which was weird. And more importantly she wasn't nice, really. She was friendly that night, but you could thtell that she wasn't, always. Friendliness was just a tool to her, a weapon, even. She used when she wanted to get something. Couldn't he see that?

Maybe not. Maybe he couldn't see anything clearly. Maybe he was just another horny, sex-obsessed teenager. And maybe she couldn't trust anything he said. Maybe meatheads weren't always assholes. Maybe goths and nerds weren't always the truly cool ones. Maybe being smart wasn't better than being popular. And maybe she wasn't pretty in a funky, interesting way, like he had said.

Or maybe she was. And maybe that wasn't a good thing.

She heard the garage door open -- somebody was home. She ripped one of them away from its little family, and stuffed it into her pocket. She shoved the rest back into the box and tossed it under the bed. He was coming up the stairs as she left his room.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she replied. "I was just looking for your old backpack."

Round Nine

• Prompt: "revolves around a U.S. president, who can be real or fictional"
• Story: "President Oshiro Prepares for a Press Conference" (written September 2012)

President Oshiro Prepares for a Press Conference

Paul watched her face as she read the report, but as always, it betrayed nothing. Her back was straight, and every sleek black hair was tucked neatly into the bun at the nape of her neck. He tried not to fidget.

"You double-checked these numbers?" she said without looking up.

"Triple-checked."

He was staring at her, he realized, so he coughed and looked away. Even after two years in this job, something about her made him feel like a twelve-year-old at a middle school dance.

She folded her hands and raised her head.

"Alright. I'm ready."

"They're going to say you're not going far enough."

"I know."

"And not just because you're a woman. They're really pushing the Asian-American angle."

She smiled as she stood, his cue to go. "I think most Americans are aware that China and Japan are two different countries."

Her calm was a wall, and his anxiety rose in a wave against it. "I don't know if you understand how ugly it's getting out there."

"You mean Miller?" she asked, leading him to the door.

"Not just him. Gina Sanders called it 'Shakespearian' this morning. And she's our friend!" Did he sound hysterical? He didn't want to sound hysterical. But she needed to be prepared. "They're loving this -- an attack from an Asian country during the first term of our first Asian-American president? Who's also female? They're just waiting for you to prove that you're too weak for this job. Or that you have split loyalties."

She looked up at him. "Thank you, Paul. I can handle it."

"Of course you can, I didn't mean -- "

"We're visiting mom's church on Sunday, and Angela's planning a whole series of folksy appearances after that. Believe me, she's not going to let anybody forget that I'm half-WASP, too." She laughed and he faked a smile. Her rare bursts of casual candor always jarred him.

"I'll see you downstairs," she said, closing the door behind him, and turned back to her desk. The report floated there like an island, and her heels sank into the plush carpet as she walked toward it. It had taken practice to move around the Oval Office without appearing to lose her balance. She studied the numbers again and then closed her eyes, testing her memory. Yes, she had it down. She glanced at her watch. Carly would be here for hair and make-up in five minutes.

She opened the top drawer to put the report out of view, and the faces of her children smiled up at her -- Madeline's fifth-grade grin wide and excited, James with his lips pressed together and the corners of his mouth turned only slightly up. A second-grade Mona Lisa.

Suddenly something hard and tight rose up from her belly and gripped her throat, closing it from the inside. Paul was right, it was getting ugly. Less than 24 hours since the attack, and already new threats were coming in, much nastier than the previous fare. "The Service is handling it," she'd quietly reassured her husband that morning, the kids in the other room. But she could feel the tension in his good-bye hug. This was exactly the kind of thing he'd been afraid of when she decided to run. Why was she putting them through this? They were proud of her, she knew. But there was something shameful even in that pride. All these firsts, all this attention. So un-feminine. Un-Japanese.

She looked down into the faces of her children again, and then pushed the drawer shut, tucking them away, keeping them safe. The press conference began in less than an hour. There could be absolutely no crying.

She sat up straight on the edge of her chair and rested her feet on the platform she'd had installed to discreetly lift her a few inches higher behind the huge desk. She focused on her breathing.

Inhale.

Exhale.

She was ready.

Here it comes!

The Spring Rumpus is upon us! A dear friend just texted me to say good luck on my “graduation," referring to the fact that this party/concert marks the end of an era for me. Wild Things Music is going on hiatus, I’m going on sabbatical from teaching, and this will be the last Rumpus for a while.

I’m ruminating on this change even as I’m going through it, but right now, I need to get down to the theater to help set up sound gear … so I look forward to thinking and writing and sharing more about this change soon.

(And this dynamic is a big part of what’s motivating the change: I want to think, write, imagine, share … but there are these immediate, concrete details to take care of. Sound gear to set up. E-mails to return. Logistics to communicate. For every lovely and amazing moment in the classroom or on stage, there is all of this organizing to do. And I don’t mind doing the organizing. But wow, does it eat time. And energy. And brain space.)

Well. A bit of ruminating slipped out I see, despite myself.

But back to the Rumpus: as I told my students yesterday, ifeveryone in town could have witnessed what I have seen over the last weekof Rumpus rehearsals, I think we’d need to move the show to the Wilma. Or perhaps the Adams Center. Seriously.It’s been so magical!Here are some of my mentalsnapshots:

• a flock of tiny Fledglingsholding hands and passionately singing “We Shall Overcome"
• a pack of Coyotes with their arms around each other singing, " ‘till we meet again…I’ll miss you Coyotes my friends."
• a band of middle-school Wolves, sharing their musical dreams with each other
• a bevy of wildF.R.O.G.S., shaking it to “Tainted Love," forgetting that they aresupposedly “adults"
• a mighty herd of Wild Things of all ages, Rumpusing down Higgins Avenue singing, “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!"

In short: the Wild Things Music Spring Rumpus is going to be phenomenal. We hope you’ll join us!

Wild Things Music Spring Rumpus | Friday, May 17

MCT Center for the Performing Arts
6:30 p.m. | Pre-Show Carnival*
7:30 p.m. | Concert

Read about it in the Missoulian.
Find us on Facebook.

Tickets:

• $10 in advance at amymartin.org
• $12 at the door starting at 6:30 p.m. 
• proceeds support scholarships for this year’s Wild Things Music students

Performances by:

• Fledglings (grades K - 3)
• Missoula Coyote Choir (grades 3 - 5) 
• Wolf Pack (grades 6 - 8) 
• F.R.O.G.S. - Federation for the Renewal Of Group Singing (adults)

Collaborators include:

• Turning the Wheel (pictured above, leading the Market Mob!)
• Josh Farmer
• The Rumpus Band (Caroline Keys, Bryn Cunningham, John Adam Smith, Rosie Cerquone and more)

Audience members will also be encouraged to participate in the fun — no one will leave the theater un-Rumpused!

*The pre-show carnival includes a variety of musical games, Turning the Wheel movement play and a chance to make your own Rumpisizer!

Don’t miss out on this celebration of all thingsmusical, creative, connected and wild!

Tickets at http://amymartin.org/

Wild Things Music Spring Rumpus
Friday, May 17
MCT Center for the Performing Arts

Carnival in lobby @ 6:30 | Concert @ 7:30

$10 in advance |$12 at the door