Howl 

I woke this morning to a lone coyote howling outside my window. That doesn’t happen very often. It’s usually a pack howling together in the desert, in the distance. I’m not prone to magical thinking, but wow, what a sign. I’ve been working on finalizing my manuscript, Coyote Girl, and I went to sleep thinking of the stories I’ve written over the course of a decade, many of which have featured coyotes. I see them more than I hear them because I hike a lot, and I have a wash that cuts through my front yard that they trot through. But this lone coyote howling this early morning felt different. It woke me and my dog, Wilbur, who was sleeping next to me. He lifted his head and sat up. I was waiting for him to start barking the way he usually does. But he did something strange. He waited for a sign from me. When I rested my hand on him, he just listened along and kept quiet. We were the only two in the house who had woken. It was 4:30am. I kept my eyes closed and listened to her howl. If I wasn’t so tired I would’ve gone to the window. But then I would have disturbed her mournful call. And that howl was low and seeking. No call and response. Not meant for me, or maybe it was. Maybe it’s for anyone who listens. Maybe we are surrounded by signs only we’re too distracted to notice or pay attention. And paying attention is a much harder thing to do today. Our attention is being mined the minute we wake up. So maybe she came to me before the noise of the day, before the shitty headlines, before I want to rage at our spineless government under the thumb of a tiny stupid man, before the leaf blowers, and the lists, and the what next cloud the glory of being alive, the glory of our natural world around us. The signs have to be bigger, more obvious. We have to shut off the practical part of our brain, working on a set of statistics. Maybe writers can do that more easily, our creativity dominates, weaving together the connections we feel intuitively. I listened along with Wilbur and we didn’t move. We felt her closeness and I felt the stories that came from her, that have inspired me to write. And maybe she is not a she. Maybe she is my father who died long ago, who was the biggest champion of my writing and won’t get to see me publish my first book. Or maybe it was just a coyote howling for reasons I’ll never know. But it led me to this. It led me to putting words together in bed while everyone still sleeps. I am too awake now. More awake in this dark and quiet hour. Maybe this is my howl. My response to her. 

Coyote Girl available April 7, 2026 by Cowboy Jamboree Press