At the sturdy 1950s rancher on Choteau Street, there were early May nights when I’d go to the garage to feed the resident rabbit tribe. And I heard the world growing. I’d come inside to tell Dave and he’d think I’d gone daft. Insects maybe. The ground thawing. The foundation shifting. Was I too tired? We often served bunny dinner around midnight.
But the scritch and rasp came so certainly, so purely, so steadily from the ground that I believed in magic. Surely I was hearing daffodil bulbs pop out of their papery skins. Or the delphinium, the improbable spectacular spikes that we’d inherited, beginning their journey toward the sun. Dave just smiled at all my theories.
It took me almost twenty years—almost not in time—to realize that the sound of spring was in fact the sound of every perennial—weed and flower alike—pushing up the mat of last year’s leaves. Gently moving the protective cover of mulch that I’d nestled in the flower beds the previous fall. It was a miracle. I wasn’t crazy.
In Montana’s incredibly abbreviated spring and summer, the growing world goes from zero to jungle in less than month. I was, in wonderful fact, hearing the delphinium grow right in front of my ears. Even in the dark. And if I’d removed the compost, I’d have seen stems and leaves unfurl, push up, stretch. Even without time-lapse photography.
Several years ago, after a long bleak winter, I flew to Arizona with treason in my heart—to see whether that deeply warm, sunlit desert called. Of course I loved wearing sandals and watching birds in March. But I was not home. And I flew back to listen for another spring and watch for, celebrate, harvest, store up the quirks of this place— and build a larder of love deep enough to weather more winters. ©
