Skip to main content

Wandering Wolf


Here's an excerpt from a piece I started during a workshop with Heidi Durrow the author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky. Heidi was the guest presenter at the annual Oregon Writing Project Renewal Day this year. We were working with character and looking at how certain elements can develop character. We also applies various descriptors of our own personality to the characters.
Since I've been fascinated by the ongoing story of OR-7 the tagged wolf who has made his way over 700 miles from Eastern Oregon to Northern California. The researchers think he's looking for a mate. The ranchers thinking he is after their cattle.


By late afternoon, I was well beyond the little valley. Beneath the deep green and rust of this new landscape, my charcoal coat appeared ashen. It worked. There had been a burn that scarred the hillside for at least 10 miles. I fit in here and decided to spend the night in relative safety.
The change in landscape held my thoughts until the last light slipped behind the timber line. I licked my paws, my tongue sliding over two scars that told the story of an encounter with a trap that misfired and left a deep cut, but failed to immobilize me. Perhaps that's what affected my ability to hunt for food in the same way. I seem now to rely more on what I find rather than initiate a kill. Am I growing soft? Is it true that there is more t sustain me out there? I may have to return to my ancestor's ways.
What I couldn't tell anyone was- I'm driven by a force stronger than hunger.
It's a different kind of pleasure. Not sexual. Something that is not fleeting at best. Something deeper, lifelong. My need to belong; to be with my mate; to define myself by those around me and ultimately the strong instinctual desire to pass on what I know to my children-my family. Without her I can do none of these things. I will keep moving until we unite.
This water that falls from the sky hits hard. Never felt it that way before. It wets my coat, and stings. Sometimes little nuggets of ice fall with it. Still I move. It comes and goes like the changing landscape.
Now there are no large trees. The ground is red. Wet clay...mud. It changes my appearance. For the first time in many days I feel fear. I feel vulnerable. Keep moving until I can blend in. Bed down somewhere.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

To a Tee

 I'm a sucker for a good t-shirt.  They are the foundational garment of my life.  My day starts with selecting a t-shirt and it ends with sleeping in one.  Once thought of as under garments, t-shirts are now original art and no doubt, a billion dollar business.   You can get a t-shirt with anybody's picture displayed.  You can commemorate an event, a birthday, a death, even a specular play in any sport.  Family reunions usually have a commemorative t-shirt.  Also, any organization that solicits your support in the form of a donation is likely to offer you a t-shirt. Where once I only had the basic white t-shirt, my drawers are filled with all manner of colorful choices.  Some recognize major events in my life, some, spectacular performances or plays I have witnessed, and some unforgettable places I have been.   I say I'm a sucker for a good t-shirt because I have taken the bait on what I perceived as a must-have only to be disappointed. ...

Illusory

What does it take to enrage you?  That moment when your words fly on pure emotion because enough is enough.  Is it a driver that cuts you off at high speed?  What about being an eyewitness to blatant racism or on the receiving end of some obvious injustice? I know some people who never express rage.  I admire them but know full well I am not capable of such distance from that which would bring about such a strong response. Another senseless shooting and 7 people die at the hands of a mentally ill gun owner.  The father of the 20 year old college student lets it fly and somehow millions feel a new sense of relief.  He calls the politicians bastards who do nothing, he wears his pain in public.  The news media responds but we all know that nothing is going to change.  We are the gun country.  We are the place where anybody, anytime, can be cut down just for being there when somebody else snaps. Usually the perpetrators are delusional. ...

Mr. Greene v. Mr. Brown

I want to tell you about something. Something I've carried inside myself for a number of years now. Perhaps if I were a different kind of person I wouldn't need to talk about it. I'm not. My need to tell it is stronger than your need to hear it. Because, however, there are a number of teachers and former students of mine who may read these meanderings from time to time, I need to tell this story all the more. About 7 or 8 years ago I was asked if I would allow a university PhD. candidate to observe an English class. At first I decided against it because I was scheduled to have a student teacher placed with me the second half of the semester in question. After some urging, however, at the request of a respected colleague, I agreed. Soon I was committing to extra meetings, signing documents and explaining to the class in question who the young woman who thoughtfully pounded away on a laptop in the rear of the classroom three times a week was. I knew that the topic of ...