The Little Owl
Michelle Hall Kells
20 September 2020
The news of the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsberg came by news alert from the Albuquerque Journal on Friday evening September 18th as I was in the barn feeding my horses. Struck with grief, I called my husband Ross who was in tears when he answered the phone. We shared a teary phone call before he had to take his flight from Miami to Memphis that evening. I stood in my kitchen feeling the barrenness of the moment as I opened my empty refrigerator and freezer in search of dinner.
A text message dispatched from my friend Susan Gilbertz from Billings, Montana the next morning started the thread of discussion. The strand of private ceremonies sent via text message flowed all day between us. The digital exchange offered a faint sense of solidarity against the isolation. Saturday passed scrambling at the last moment to the local grocery store in Cedar Crest before it closed.
When I returned home, I sought solace in the process of constructing a small ofrenda for RBG on kitchen window sill looking out onto the tangled grove of piñon and juniper in our yard where the bird feeders hang. I lit a small votive candle and cedar incense beside the Zuni fetish of a miniature white owl as evening began to fall. I started unpacking the bags of groceries on my kitchen counter--replenishing my emptied-out refrigerator and freezer that I had depleted over the past week spent talking and meeting with my students via phone and internet. A bag of ice was melting in the sink.
Dusk was falling when I took my dogs up the mountain for a quick walk, piles of fruit and vegetables still scattered around my kitchen. The glass votive candle still flickered on the window sill.
When the dogs and I returned, I heard the raucous chatter of birds in our backyard, usually a sign that the little screech owl was in her nest box that we had attached to the side of our house fifteen years ago when we first moved in. The scrub jays were frantic, squawking in unrelenting protest when I stepped around the corner. I scanned the rock garden. The gray owl wasn’t in her nest box as I had expected. She wasn’t holding forth as usual peeking her head out of her perch and surveying the yard from above.
I stood confused in the last light of the day, listening to the water trickling in the fountain. The tiny votive candle in the kitchen window glowed through the milky glass, a pink ember flickering faintly from within the house. As I turned to walk into the house, I saw her—the tiny owl perched on a piñon branch, regal and calm. The towhees and jays were screeching and hopping from branch to branch all around her. I stepped slowly toward the little owl. “Hello, there,” I whispered greeting her at eye level. Her gaze touched mine. We smiled at each other. Then she let me take her picture. Actually, I think she posed for a “selfie” just like a little diva. The cacophony of bird chatter stopped for just a moment. In the silence, I bowed my head and said, “Thank you,” then walked quietly back into the house toward the light still glowing in the kitchen window.
