After nearly five years of living in Montana, it’s all beginning to feel familiar. I take this as a positive, for I’m finally settled into the place that I once decided to call home on a whim without any friends, a place to live or a job to keep me here. Of course, those vacancies eventually filled themselves but not without some questioning from myself mainly, the person who decided that this was the best course of action. All of this to say, I still find moments here and there that make Montana feel new again - which now sounds ridiculous to say as I write this from a closed room in the fourth largest state in the nation, most of which I’ve yet to even glimpse.
Last night, following a hint from a good friend that she had seen an owl, I had myself one of those moments, for I had located a family group of great grays that I hadn’t met before. The rush was much like the first time I ever laid eyes on one of these large birds, in a different mountain range on the other side of valley. It was a good reminder of who this place really belongs to, as I had familiarized myself with those trees once or twice before. As it turns out, the trees don’t belong to us, the humanoids as I like to say, seeking shelter when it rains and heat when winter sets in. The trees belong to the wild ones - the owls own this place.
