How to Love a Wolf: Today is No Different, December 12, 2020

How to Love a Wolf: Today Is No Different

Today I walk just before sundown. (I check the time/s for sundown every day—a habit born of finishing the work day close to sundown for so long.) I rush to head out, and I do head out, to find what I find on the paths behind my house. Today, against habit, I walk a new path.

[Now, in my kitchen, Cat Stevens' Peace Train plays

'something good has begun

and I believe it could be'...

this plays and I wonder about all things...*has* something good begun?]

This path I take today cuts an imperfect circular groove around my house. I walk it as the sun fades. At one point all the sounds of cars also fade and I hear the creaking near-falling of tall, grey trees. Is this a warning? Usually they (warnings, trees creaking) scare me. Tonight I meet their sound with my witchiness (ewww, but nooo no no, not ewww). NOT FUCKING EWWW.

I meet their sound with my witchiness.* I pause. I wait. Allow. Nothing falls. I reconcile the likelihood of falling. This may fall. That may fall. You may fall. You may fall. I may fall. I may be crushed. I say this to the trees as if they are in my dominion.

They are not.

The fear exhilarates me.

I may be crushed. I feel suddenly and irrevocably myself. Dangerous and in danger in perfect equal measure, without patriarchal judgement.

*I remember walking home from Brownies in Goderich, Ontario. Late. In winter. After the time change. I remember the trees creaking and being unsure that I could make those last 40 steps to our house, where my mom waited for me, surely knowing the time it would take for me to walk from Brownies to home. I feel fear, uncertainty, the risk of being crushed.

Tonight I feel only exhilaration. Crush me. Crush me. Crush me, I think. Talk to me. Talk to me. Talk to me, I think. Trees. Trees. Trees, I think. Tell me about the universe discovering itself. Tell me about me, about me discovering myself, about discovery discovering me.