When the train sounds its level crossing in the wee hours, the coyotes howl. Why? I don't know, but I like it. I know the coyotes are always there, though I may rarely see them. But when their ruckus starts up, there suddenly seems an impossible number of creatures just outside my window.
Think of animal tracks. Summer trails show only a few traces of animal life in the mud. But winter - winter transforms and conceals even as it provides revelations. Snow reveals a super-highway of wild activity. Snow provides the evidence of abundant life. When the snow melts, you have to go back to believing without proof - back to a kind of faith.
Elk, deer, even the bighorn sheep confirm their presence regularly. It's the pine martens, mice, siskins, coyotes, wolves, lynx, cougar, and white-tails who recede and emerge from awareness seasonally. The shy. The nocturnal. The furtive prey, and the stalking predators.
And now here I sit, awake hours earlier than everyone else to make my own tracks in ink.
Writing about my life is like all that - the snow, the tracks, the train and the coyotes howling. Within me lurks a longing to share my life through words. I merely believe there is something of value to express. There's no evidence that's true - until I face a blank page.
I hitch one word to another with deliberate momentum and hear the animal cry of my authentic being. I have been placing a notebook on my lap for thirty-five years. That simple act camouflages the mundane signs of my passage - bills and "to-do" lists and schedules, trash and used tissues and dishes and laundry - and my life is transformed by being hidden. The proof of a deeper, more meaningful existence is exposed, ironically, by drifts of paper accumulating over my life. Without fail, within moments of placing pen on paper, I'm breathing deeply and rhythmically - as though I were asleep. But it's a much better rest. One that even coyotes cannot disturb.
