Remembering Marylou Butler

Marylou Butler was a writer, an activist, a partner, and a friend. She died on February 6, 2020. 

When I think of Marylou, I see her in the classroom, sitting with her coat on and her books stacked in front of her, notebook open and pen in hand, eyes bright. Marylou, leaning forward so as not to miss a single word of the discussion, raising her hand to ask smart and concise questions, furiously scratching down notes as someone replies. Marylou on the very first day I met her, sitting beside Judy in an otherwise empty classroom, portable coffee mugs on the desk and their faces expectant. 

 Before I met Marylou, I spent years bumbling around, trying to figure out who I was. When I moved to Santa Fe just over eight years ago, I had two adjunct classes at the community college and a cocktail waitressing job at night. Scrambling to make ends meet, I pitched a travel writing class to Continuing Ed at SFCC, and it was accepted. On that first Saturday, my heart beating hard, I woke up early and spent hours prepping, then drove to campus, found the right classroom, and went in. Marylou and Judy, the first students to arrive, were waiting there for me, already seated in the same chairs they’d occupy for the rest of the course. I must have looked terrified and probably unqualified, but Marylou and Judy just smiled and told me they’d read my bio online, and they couldn’t wait to get to know me. I still remember the way they made me feel that morning: Like I’d arrived somewhere safe, somewhere I finally belonged. I mattered here, and we had work to do. 

Since that first section of travel writing, I’ve taught dozens of courses, some pleasurable, some a strain, all learning experiences for me. Still, that first travel writing section shines brightest in my mind. I taught travel writing three more times, and each time, Marylou and Judy signed on. Judy had a poet’s background, but Marylou was all academia, and at first, her writing style was so formal, analytical, factual, hyper-linear. A little daunted, I gave Marylou what feedback I could – take risks, I urged her. Make a mess. Show, don’t tell. 

Of all the students I’ve ever had, Marylou turned out to be the bravest. From her first essays in travel writing, which recounted, day by day, recent vacations through the American West, Marylou’s writing evolved into something much more artful, more emotional, and profoundly more complex. A woman with an exceptional career behind her, Marylou never once got defensive about my twenty-six-year-old’s critique of her work. She never, ever boasted about her rich and varied professional experience, and she always came to the table with a mind open to progress and growth. 

When asked to give more, Marylou gave. She wandered down paths in her writing that I haven’t dared visit: Her parents’ deaths, her family’s secrets, her own nighttime dreams, subliminal visits from the departed. With every assignment, Marylou’s writing loosened its hold on itself, like she was becoming someone else on those pages—someone new. 

I’ve heard that the more life experience someone has, the harder it is to change them. People warned me of this when I got married – you get what you get, and you shouldn’t try to alter anything. People can’t change. 

But from the very start, Marylou proved that old adage wrong. Every semester, every class meeting, and every single day, Marylou worked to become a better, wiser, more compassionate version of herself. Over the course of the past eight years, I watched her linear, academic writing transform into something daring, vivid, and profound. She made herself vulnerable on the page. Marylou treasured feedback from everyone willing to share it, including eighteen-year-olds just out of high school. With her ego safely on the back burner, Marylou lived each day like the gift that it was: mindfully, with passion and gratitude. She loved words, admired what they could do, and made the most of every literary opportunity, including the day we sneaked in with the high-school class to hear novelist Colum McCann speak. In every classroom I enter for the rest of my life, I know I’ll find Marylou somewhere in there, waiting for me, listening hard, pen poised ready over the page. 

The following passage is excerpted from Marylou’s essay, “Breaking Ground,” which was published in the 2017 issue of the Santa Fe Literary Review at the Santa Fe Community College. Of her life’s accomplishments – and her willingness to live outside the box according to her own values – Marylou wrote: 

…I know I am different. My life of advocacy has meant fostering equality and self-determination in support of all life. As ordinary citizen, I work for change – a member of CodePink Women for Peace, a voter registrar, a promoter of environmental and social justice. The call to activism, to bear witness, even to engage in civil disobedience is more urgent as threats to life become more dire. My hope is that our collective seeds of activism will break ground in time to make a difference. The responsibility to protect the vulnerable and underrepresented, wherever they show up, is greater than I imagined when I first proclaimed my values in our Philadelphia row home with the faded beige wallpaper.

Marylou Butler, Ph.D. was a psychologist and President Emerita of Southwestern College in Santa Fe. Born in Philadelphia, she was a founding mother of the Feminist Therapy Collective, one of the first in the nation. She was a lifelong advocate for women, for peace, and a practicing Buddhist in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. Her professional publications were numerous before embarking upon creative writing (Santa Fe Literary Review, Trickster, Orion).