One Howl of a Spring

A few seasons ago, after a twenty year relationship, my husband and I called it quits. It hasn’t rolled out quite as easily as those letters unfurled on the page. 

I chose the path and then felt every aching step upon it as if it were the last few miles of a marathon—when one is painfully aware of the road beneath, the air within, and the space above. Marathons are for those with a strength of spirit not measured in miles but in capacity to endure and persevere. 

Deciding to leave my marriage left me feeling vulnerable and unprotected. 

———

I walk in the remote and wilder off-leash areas because I have a fundamental need to climb. The flats don’t help me re-build. The emotional hills dotting the landscape of my living are dragging me down, while I am giving all my effort. Conquering physical hills gives me the courage to carry on with the emotional ones. 

I have walked at Nose Hill Park, a natural environment park spreading over eleven square kilometres, for over twenty years, and until this year had not seen another living creature besides man and dog. I knew there were coyotes, deer, porcupines, ground critters, and high flying northern harriers and hawks.
A slice of open country right in the midst of our urban enclosure. 

Late this spring, I went into the ravine at the northern end of the park, a place I love to explore for it is ever-changing. Both of my dogs wandered freely. I had just stepped onto the path at the bottom of the hill when I heard a scuffle through the trees. My two-year-old Wylie had gotten ahead of us, and a second after my whistle I heard the half-crazed, frantic bark of a dog in battle. 

I ran. 

I rounded a corner and saw Wylie entangled with a coyote. The billowing fur, as each dog snarled and lunged, captured my momentary attention. I screamed, “Wylie Come!” He turned toward me with the coyote on his tail. I threw my hands in the air and yelled an unintelligible series of words and the coyote halted. Wylie placed himself between me and the coyote, and my eleven-year-old dog Abby joined him. I backed away to a chorus of yips and barks. When we had put several feet between us and the coyote, I scrambled out of the valley. The hair on my arms pricked—part fear, part exhilaration, part knowing.  When I got to the top of the hill I looked back. 

He sat in the grass, watching us retreat and protecting his pup-filled den. He stood illuminated—his tawny fur catching the light of the sun as the wind pushed its way through his soft coat—yet hidden in the swaying straw-coloured grass engulfing him. 

Tears filled my eyes; I gazed tenderly across the hillside. 

———

Protection became a muted theme in my living thoughts. How on earth would I manage to care for and protect my young, while I stood on my own? Who would provide protection and security for me so that I could be brave with my life? Who would stand on the hillside and guard us while we slept? 

———

Just days later, on a morning that rose up on the edge of a fog, my dogs and I had our next coyote encounter. I stayed to the well traveled path—straight out, and straight back. Not fifty feet from the parking lot on my way back, three coyotes skittered toward and away from my dogs with playful ambition. Wylie chased after a coyote toward a small cluster of bushes. I yelled, and just as the coyote darted into the bush my dog returned to me. 

A few weeks later, I leaned into the desire to get away and hide and walked down into the ravine again. However, I stayed to the periphery and avoided the treed area where Wylie had gone into battle. Nonetheless, Abby was out-of-sorts right from the get-go. As Wylie and I moved forward, she circle back toward the parking lot. I have a suspicion that she suffers from a bit of dementia, as she has taken to wandering in the opposite direction more often these days; I slowed down to wait for her. Something was off in her whole demeanour, which got my dander up. But, we carried on. I love to walk, need to walk, must walk. So very reluctant to stop walking. 

At the bottom of the hill, a recessed area had filled with water and Wylie went for a swim. I stood and watched him. All of a sudden Abby ran past me and I followed her with my eyes. A dozen feet behind me, right on the trail, a coyote stood, teeth bared, and back hunched up. 

Abby came within inches of the coyote, growling and nipping. I lost my shit. I may have screamed a rhymed phrase that ended with “duck”. I yelled Abby’s name over and over like some hyped-up lunatic. She finally came. Wylie meanwhile was enjoying some “spa-time” in the make-shift pond, totally oblivious to the goings-on. I called him. 

With both dogs to-me, I flapped my hand like a duck’s beak — that’s right — it is the hand signal my daughter taught the dogs so they would bark on command. Just as they started barking, while I screamed stuff like “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” and “WTF?” and “I’VE HAD ENOUGH!”, I saw two people and their dog across the tiny pond. They simply stared at me. 

———

Nights later, I sat enjoying the company of my neighbour and friend Michelle; I relayed my coyote encounters to her and mused aloud, “I wonder what it means for a coyote to be so much in my path?”

She pulled up a website on her iPad about spirit animals, and she read this, “ If Coyote has come skulking across your path, you are being reminded to laugh at yourself. Things have been entirely too serious of late and you simply need to let loose and get on with it. Stop dwelling on your worries and stresses and let them go. You have asked for the help you need so just let go and allow your spirit helpers to do what they need to do. Do something that gives you pleasure and joy and focus on the positive for a change.” 

I read that over and over for days. 

Just last week, I walked at Nose Hill with my friend Maria. “What would happen if we turned here?” she asked, and we ended up in a section of Nose Hill I had never been to before, heading downhill. At the end of the descent, we heard an ambulance siren in the distance. The siren triggered a lone coyote to rise up out of the grass—a distance in front of us—and warn all within earshot of the danger perceived in the wailing siren. His head pitched backward and his mouth opened in a perfect arc and he howled a staccato Ow-Ow-Owww. A thing of piercing beauty that could freeze your blood like a waterfall in winter. Across a field to our right, a pack of coyotes appeared as if pulled right out of the grass by their howling snouts. Back and forth, rooting us to the spot for an elongated moment. 

———

The coyote is part of a pack, and though we humans are not pack animals, the symphony of “Ow-Ow-Ow” on that day made me realize that I am not alone. I find myself surrounded by those who love me, and would call out a warning, walk alongside of me, listen to my stories, and use their instincts to protect me when I am in danger, and reassure me when I am not. 

All I need to do is howl.