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My Life Among The Tribe

By Ken Wright

"It's not our abilities that show who we really are, it's our choices. "

- Albus Dumbledore

This venture wasn't far, or exotic, or even all that rustic or challenging. In fact, it was downright posh. But it was still one of those welcome "Oh, yeah!" reminders of where we live and why we live here. All it took was two days with a dozen close friends in a ski hut high in the San Juans.

Colorado's high country is blessed with dozens of huts and hut systems spread across the state, and over the years, our group has tried many of them. Some with kids, some without; some for savoring slow cross-country skiing, some in search of pulse-pounding backcountry powder turns. This trip, though, was deliberately designed to appeal to our slothful, indolent, hedonistic sides. It was, after all, one of our compatriots' 40th birthday.

For this visit we chose a cabin sitting at 11,500 feet above and behind Telluride Ski Area. It gave us what we were looking for: after earning our visit with a four-and-a-half-mile skin up a Forest Service road - all uphill, gaining some 2,000 feet - we were done with the labor side of our adventure. The bulk of our gear was snowmobiled up to the wood-and-stone cabin built on the site of an old mining generating station in the an alpine ghost town sitting beneath a ragged pair of 13,000-foot peaks.

Quaint enough. Inside, though, was the 21st century: full kitchen complete with microwave and coffee maker, bright living room with CD player and satellite radio, and several fun and funky bedrooms peaking with the third-floor "observatory" room. Oh, yeah: and there was a sauna and big, deep hot tub.

Needless to say, we didn't suffer. But, like I said, that's not why we were there, anyway.

One reason we were there was, of course, for the getaway from our work-a-day lives. It was a quick and easy jaunt: On Saturday morning, we delivered our kids to friends' houses for a couple of days, then we threw a bunch of our ski gear into day packs and were off. In two hours we were loading gear on the sled and shouldering our packs. Three hours after that we were resting our middle-aged bones, sitting around the hut drinking beer and listening to classic rock on the satellite radio and gawking at the alpine splendor cradling the cabin.

That, in a nutshell, explains why we all live here: so we can have this countryside and these adventures - even adventures in luxury, such as this - right here, right where we live. And the group in this hut is bound by each of our having chosen to eke out our livings in remote southwestern Colorado in order to have this quality of life - a "quality" based on where we live rather than as gauged by the quantity of income.

And we in this hut are bound by another choice. Each of us here on this trip opted to raise their family in the Four Corners for the aforementioned reasons. Because we all wanted to offer our kids, not just a place to live, but a place to live in. A Place: a physical, tangible, meaningful landscape to not just grow up in, but to grow in: exploring and discovering, wandering through and wondering over, sharing powerful experiences, challenging themselves, changing themselves, together. And together, creating their own Places where they know they're insiders, where they'll have stories that mark their lives and their relationships, where they'll always know they're home.

And over the past decade-plus, the group in this hut has shared in each other's adventures in that Place-rich parenting, from strollers and backpacks, to feet and rafts, to skis and bicycles, to tents and chairlifts and huts ...

But this time, there are no children. And that's another reason we're here.

No, it's not because we need to talk - what do you say when everyone knows pretty much everything about each other, talks every day, takes care of each other and each other's kids, has been through each other's best of times and worst of times? No, on this trip, there were few, or no, deep and revealing conversations. But that's not why we were there, anyway.

We were there to remember.

Because it's easy to forget. It's easy to forget in that work-a-day world, and in that bigger, louder, more pressing and much more depressing so-called Real World that comes in through our TV and radio and the Internet and the pages of newspapers and magazines. When that tsunami of news and stress and information and demands washes over all that's right around, it's easy to forget that you still can choose good things, no matter what, even when so much seems to be going so bad. Because if you're looking out there, toward our institutions and leaders and businesses, for goodness, then you have forgotten the nature of economics and politics. And of goodness.

You have forgotten that good things are not given, they are chosen.

And you have forgotten that only then - only with the abandon that comes with that decision - can you harvest the fruits or see the value of the things that can only be forged over time. Landscape into Place. People into Tribe.

And that's why we were there: to remember our Tribe.

Not mere acquaintances, or even just friends. Not family - there is no blood between us. And not even community, or neighborhood, or partners, or buddies, or companions, or comrades in arms. Tribe. A relation based not on commitment, but devotion; glued not by caution, but caring; rooted not in information, but immersion; shaped not by conformity, but non-formality; steered not by judgement, but by knowing; sculpted not by ideas, but by experiences; seeing each other not with mere acceptance, but with sincere appreciation.

Tribe: a strong collective through strong individuals.

Tribe: strong individuals through a strong collective.

So we in this hut are bound by this choice, too. Because in this world we live in today you don't have to make this choice. In this world, you can choose to keep traveling. You can always start over somewhere else. It's encouraged, even - just look at what that so-called Real World is telling us all the time. At some point, though, each of us is forced - or offered, depending how you choose to see it - the opportunity to choose. Twice, actually. This is not due to some profound, mystical, magical, cosmic, pseudo-psychological occurrence - it's simple mathematics.

Because of mathematics, there comes a time in life when Place and Tribe become possible - when you can abandon to the immersion and devotion that time, and only time, allows to find those unique relations. And there comes another time - perhaps right around our 40th birthday - when you can choose to walk away from these things. You are still young enough to travel, seeking the excitement of new places and people; but because of the mathematics of lifespan and age - and the time it takes to make Tribe and Place - you must sacrifice those relations. They are, after a time, unrecreatable.

Neither choice here is good or bad, right or wrong - each is a valid choice. But this choice will define the rest of your life, and will define who you are the rest of your life. And if you're a parent, it will also define your kids' childhoods.

We in this hut have made our choices - to pass those things onto our kids: Place and Tribe. We have chosen those spaces where our kids know they'll always be accepted and appreciated, where they'll always be welcome, no matter what.

And for this Tribe, that choice is our gift to our kids.

This binds us. As much as we shared this hike up here and this small space together, we have chosen to share the grander journey together in this shared place. So on this hut trip, we didn't talk much. Instead, we laughed. Played cards. Told funny stories about our friend on his 40th birthday. Drank and listened to music and soaked in the hot tub. We schemed ways to get our kids up here.

And through that just being together again, in this hut high in our beloved home mountains, we remembered why we're together, still. We chose each other, again.

Ken Wright lives on the West Slope of the Bell Curve. He is author of A Wilder Life: Essays from Home, and Why I'm Against It All (Raven's Eye Press). You can read his blog at www.newwest.net/fourcorners.