Jenna Caplette migrated from California to Montana in the early 1970s, first living on the Crow Indian reservation, then moving to Bozeman where she owned a downtown retail anchor for eighteen years. These days she owns Bozeman BodyTalk & Energetic Healthcare, hosts a monthly movie night, teaches and writes about many topics.
Montana spring evolves erratically. Warm days bring evening snow. Snow-capped mountainsloom to the north while the grass in my yard greens and grows. My garden awakens by inches, centimeters. I savor that slow awakening, grateful for this time of adjustment, to a season that asks for me to be more social, more outward.
This spring, though, has brought a challenging juxtapostion. In the juniper outside our home’s baywindow robins have moved in, now busily refining their nest. In the Caplette family apartments (hosted by six grandfatherly spruce trees) mornings bring excited chatter.
Last week, Conner Redtail, our dog and committed companion of twelve years died, out under the apple tree, bird song threading the air, a gentle breeze flowing.
Death and birth. Juxtapositions.
After Conner’s death, my daughter Rose and I packed up, headed to Yellowstone for a weekend, reveling in the warm air, the critters moving, flying, grazing, scavenging, cavorting — the tender awkwardness of buffalo calves, the explosive enthusiasm of spring runoff in the Lamar River, Tower Falls, in ponds and seasonal lakes.
Then Sunday evening we came home to a great emptiness. Since then, I try to focus on life and not death, but loss seduces me. I miss Conner. Mourn him. Am confused by his sudden absence.
Usually spring has meant crack-of-dawn wake ups with Max, my twenty-pound cat, walking on my face, nesting on my chest. More polite, Conner would hover, waiting to go out, to be fed. The three of us had a routine together while my daughter slept in. Lucky her, I would think. Now I wish I could revist that often-irritating early-morning routine, would gladly make evening space for the duo on the couch.
It is beyond ironic that Conner would die just six months after Max, his arch nemesis, die just when he had the household humans to himself, along with all their attention, all the treats, the love; die almost exactly twelve years to the day from when I signed his adoption papers. Did we have a contract I hadn’t realized I agreed to? Twelve years and no more?
As I prepare to transplant the seedlings I started from seed back in March — a deceptively healthy-seeming Conner lying on the staircase landing and watching me — I take time to consider what it is I want to grow in this season of my life. I don't keep track of which seedling represents which dream, which hope, which plan. For now, they all stretch toward light, thrive, warm and nutured in their grow-light environment, oblivious to the erratic weather just outside the window. I can do that for now, keep them healthy and safe.
This morning as my daughter Rose and I shared breakfast, one of the juniper-robins flew at us and then made a hard left, headed to its nest. We watched and smiled. Rose said, It’s almost like having a pet.
Poor robins. Already we are over-focused on whether they have been to the nest or not, peaking out through the blinds to see if one of them is there. It’s such a gift right now, to have life happening so richly, right outside the window, the natural flow of the season in place though so much in our lives has changed.
And hey, even the grey days and nesting-in ourselves is pretty great.
The experts are in agreement. Montana is facing a "below normal" risk of wildfire for the first time in a couple of years this summer.
