The Artist Date

(Source: Trip Advisor.)

In preparation for writing this column, I made a plan to go on an “artist date”—something I learned about from reading Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way more than twenty years ago. Cameron defines the artist date as a solo expedition to do something that enchants or interests you, “…an excursion, a play date that you pre-plan and defend against all interlopers.”

The first artist date I ever took was in 1996 after reading The Artist’s Way for the first time. I had just returned from a trip to Germany where I’d visited relatives, and, feeling very European, planned an entire artist date around a scarf I’d bought at a flea market in Berlin. Back then, I was living in Flagstaff, Arizona, and I took my journal to a dimly lit bar in a historic hotel to write on a rainy afternoon. The scarf gave me the moxie to occupy a tiny wooden table illuminated by a green bankers lamp amidst a cast of literary characters draped over shabby antique furniture. When a man in leather pants tried to engage me in conversation, I said, “Ich spreche nur deutsch (I speak only German),” a phrase I’d looked up in my German phrase book ahead of time. Then I flipped the end of the scarf over my shoulder and went back to writing.

There is a coffee shop here in Missoula with a similar, bohemian vibe, a kindred spirit to that hotel bar in Flagstaff. Butterfly Herbs' website tells you everything you need to know: “The oldest Espresso Bar and café in Missoula,” and below, in red font, “We are currently updating this site! Please note the prices quoted were current in 1997. Ask for current pricing when placing order. Thank you!”  The website was last updated on 01/13/03; it says so at the bottom of the home page.

Butterfly feels like a coffee shop, not an Apple store or an Ikea. There is a wooden bar, wooden stools, and wooden booths with red, vinyl seats. Behind the counter is a brass sign that looks like it once belonged to a Catholic Church: Confessions 5:00–7:00 Daily, and above the sign, a collection of plants on a shelf, all reaching up toward a skylight. 

The bar is cluttered with newspapers, ceramic coffee cups, and donuts on a cake pedestal under a domed glass lid. The air smells of deep-roasted coffee beans, homemade soup, and toasted bagels. Occasionally there is the faintest, almost pleasant hint of tobacco smoke drifting in from the alley when they prop the back door open in the summertime. 

(Source: Author.)

I used to walk to Butterfly for artist dates when I lived downtown. Part of the fun was getting there, crossing the bridge spanning the Clark Fork River where I could watch people fly fishing, kayaking, or walking on the trail below, occasionally spotting an Osprey, a beaver, or a Great Blue Heron standing on one leg. I always stayed on the sidewalk on the west side of Higgins so I could pass by the enormous Schefflera plant in the sunny window at El Cazador, and hopefully see my favorite street musician, someone I referred to as the Heavy Metal Busker, at the corner of Higgins and Main.

In planning the first artist date from my new home base, I had to consider how I’d get to Butterfly Herbs, since getting there is half the date. Driving was out. Navigating traffic and jockeying for a parking space would be the quickest way to kill the mood. Biking was also out, since the degree of vigilance required to ride the four miles of pavement with narrow shoulders and distracted drivers would not afford the luxury of letting my mind wander and observe.

Riding the bus was the answer. Besides the environmental and economic benefits of using zero-fare electric public transit, I just plain love riding the bus. The immersion in snapshots and sound bites, snippets of other people’s stories, is like being an extra in a movie. Sometimes I put in earbuds that connect to nothing, a ruse that allows me to stare out the window looking occupied while absorbing the atmosphere.

(Source: Author.)

So, I got on the 12:28 bus downtown this afternoon for my artist date. I like the midday bus crowd, a group of riders who keep odd hours, work odd jobs, and move around town at odd intervals. There’s a couple chatting animatedly about Wordle, a woman playing UNO with a child, and a neatly dressed man whose nervous appearance suggests he’s either on his way to a job interview or a blind date. There is a guy sitting in the very front seat, leaning in toward the driver, prattling on about the plot of a sci-fi book that’s sitting in his lap, unfettered by the sign that says, “FOR YOUR SAFETY DO NOT TALK TO THE OPERATOR WHILE THE BUS IS IN MOTION.”

I gravitate to the middle, the area I prefer in movie theaters, classrooms, and airplanes, too. I take a seat across from the only regular I recognize, a heavily bearded man who gets around with the aid of a wheeled walker, a personal vehicle he’s adorned with streamers, flags, and the kind of blinking lights I have on my bicycle. 

He offers me an officious nod. 

I’ve considered this man the unofficial bus monitor ever since the time I opened up a granola bar and he muttered “No eating on the bus,” pointing up to a sign with a cryptic symbol that I guess is supposed to depict a hotdog and a drink with a line through it. He gave me a look that said, hey, I don’t make the rules lady, I just enforce them.

(Source: Author.)

“What are you, a spy?!” he grumbles across the aisle this afternoon when he notices me scribbling in my notebook. I detect amusement in his voice, and decide that one day he and I will be friends.

When I disembark at my stop, the sci-fi guy is just getting to the rising action of the plot. Maybe I’ll hear the ending on my ride home.

The front part of Butterfly Herbs is a warm, eclectic retail shop. I glide past scented soaps, fresh-roasted coffee beans, exotic teas, greeting cards, candles, and glass jars filled with candy on my way toward the espresso bar in the back. I double-check my pants pocket for the ten dollar bill I put there earlier: The coffee shop takes only cash or checks. 

Today’s cast of characters bellied up to the bar includes a princess dressed in black, wearing a 40th birthday sash and a tiara; someone in a cowboy hat, shorts, and lavender Crocs; and a man with a gray ponytail and a leather artist portfolio who I have seen on nearly every visit to Butterfly since my first in 2002.

There is no Wi-Fi at Butterfly, and there’s only one electric outlet for customer use in the whole joint, at the coveted booth in the back. Depending on your point of view, these quirks could be seen either as charming, or woefully inconvenient. I side with charming.

I slide into a booth with my steaming cup of coffee and open up my journal. I’ve got lots of blank pages, a good pen, seven more dollar bills in my pocket, and notes from the bus. I don’t even need fake earbuds in Butterfly, because it’s perfectly normal to just space out, look, and listen. Call me boring, weird, or crazy, but this is my idea of fun. Call me anything you’d like, but just don’t call me on the phone because it’s turned off, somewhere in the bottom of my bag. I’m on a date, after all.

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