Laughing Coyotes...

"Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism…and to the

‘good life,’ whatever it is and wherever it happens.”

- Hunter Thompson: The Proud Highway:

Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman

I live on Laughing Coyote Way in Oro Valley, Arizona.

When I tell people this, they usually chuckle.  It occasionally happens when I’m on the phone with someone who needs to get my mailing address.  I have, by now, taken to warning them that they will at least smile, if not suppress a giggle or two.

I am uncertain the origin of the name, but there is little doubt there are nights when coyotes begin singing in the desert/golf course area behind our home. 

When they sing, it is a sort of discordant harmony sounding a bit like a chorale of sopranos warbling a Gregorian chant in a minor key.  As each member runs out of air, they gasp and howl yet once again.  Occasionally one of them, apparently not attending to the conductor, ad-libs a “...yip, yip…” solo, only to be quickly overwhelmed, yet once again by the larger chorus.

My street, however, is NOT called “Howling Coyote Way” or “Singing Coyote Way,” but rather “Laughing Coyote Way.”

What is a laughing Coyote?  What makes them laugh?  Why does something catch their attention in a humorous way?  Is it for some silly physical comedy, like purposely running into a Saguaro (pronounced ‘swa-ro’) Cactus or playing dead - feet straight in the air, tongue hanging out?

When they get tickled, do the corners of their mouths gently curl as their eyes sparkle with subtle anticipation of the impending humor?

Do they tell Coyote jokes to one another?  You know,

“Did you hear the one about the jack rabbit, desert rat and wild pig that headed to the creek to get a drink of water?”

 “None of them returned…I’m NOT lion!”

Chortle…chortle…yuck…yuck…

There is little doubt there is a lot of material available here in the Sonoran Desert…snakes, big horn sheep, lizards, birds, insects…I mean the wild life is almost immeasurable.  “Wild life…” That is in itself a completely different topic.  I mean, talk about your party animals…hmm, wild animal nightlife, that would be worth exploring sometime.

But back to the laughing coyotes…

The problem is that these animals are difficult to pin down.  It seems this activity happens well after dark when most of us two-legged creatures are tucked away in our dens and temperature controlled caves.  Some of us are up at night, but our vision and hearing is so comparatively poor, we long ago decided not to compete with nocturnal creatures hunting for food, entertainment and a good joke now and then.

I suppose, like a lot of other things in my universe, I will have to depend upon someone else’s expertise, for it seems the chances of my seeing a Coyote laugh is probably not going to happen.

I have to say, however, I envy that fellow or gal who had the privilege of seeing that event and had the sense to memorialize it “…on the street where I live.” 

Maybe I could conjure the spirits of George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion) or Alan Lerner and Fredrick Lowe (musical My Fair Lady) for some catchy lyric/tune…OR simply accept that there are some things in the universe not everyone is privileged to know…

- ted

Moments of reflection...

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have.

Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”

- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

The temperature had warmed to 32 degrees (0C) on that cold winter’s day in New York City.  Below 10 degrees (-12C) the night before, we prepared to layer clothing as much as we could – we didn’t need as much as we had anticipated.

The journey began with a shuttle to Newark Airport, then the Number 62 bus to Penn Station where we picked up the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) train for our destination on Manhattan Island.  All told, the trip was nearly an hour and a half with the time passing quickly, filled by small talk to cover an undercurrent of somber anticipation.

At the end of the line, we exited the station riding a long escalator from the underground train, embracing the cold winter’s air. Out the exit and to our left, we walked around the extremely tall building coming to the place for which we had made this journey:

Ground Zero of the World Trade Center.

“Ground Zero,” a term used to describe a point on the earth’s surface closest to the detonation of an explosion.  On this day, as it turned out, it was both geographic and soulful – the physical site and our hearts…

In Memoriam…

The memorial fountains – one for each of the destroyed towers – and subterranean museum sites are framed on three sides by Vesey, Liberty and Church streets…the West Side Highway ‘closes the box’…

As we approached the first of the two deeply set fountains, an eerie feeling seeped through my skin…a feeling not so easy to describe, a ‘presence’ really…a ‘knowing’…a disconcerting sensation, communicating the inexpressible magnitude this place had played in our lives and our history.

It wasn’t the first time an awareness of ‘other presence’ had pressed on my spirit. It happened at Dealy Plaza, in the West End District of Dallas where a young American President was assassinated….Auschwitz-Birkenau where the showers of death and work camps of the ‘living dead’ still resonate in the air…

Here, once again the cloak of discomfort and overwhelming sense of loss oozed through my clothing, both fabric and living, to unbalance the chemistry in my mind. 

There is no way to equate these events; it was simply the common denominator of holy sobriety covering my soul I found so unsettling.

We gazed into the pit of the fountains around which names of those lost in the North Tower were engraved, the water at the bottom of this dark cube fell into a smaller and darker cube in its center…lives lost…slipping out of sight…into the abyss…

Hold your mind…don’t slip too far into a bottomless pit of thought. I told myself.

The Museum…

We had the time and so purchased tickets for the museum…the intimate memorial…the place in which threads of the end of the lives of real people who had breathed and loved and struggled and failed and succeeded – everyday lives – were woven into an experiential tapestry that will no doubt echo and reverberate and resound in the coming months and years until my breath, as theirs, is finished.

Photo after photo of folks with expressions of disbelief and shock lined the entryway just inside the entrance…a common expression emerging amongst the faces of every race and creed – hands over mouth or on forehead, trying to make sense of the paper and debris floating through the air and to the street below like celebratory confetti…there was no celebration here.

People had simply been going on about their days with the freedom this country provides.

The event was unthinkable!

The long escalator into the cavernous main museum lay right beside a set of stairs used by some who escaped the unfolding apocalypse…that physically “…escaped the unfolding apocalypse…” – for of little doubt they did not escape leviathan who buried his fearfully long and poisonous talons deeply into their minds that fateful day.

There were so many things in this tomb of memories…fire trucks and ambulances that had been mangled and bent…enormous girders warped and twisted like pieces of taffy…parts of cars and bicycles and shoes worn by people that day.

Along the walls of commemoration were video clips chronicling the unbelievable 

series of events…television programs and news casts interrupted,

“In New York City Today, we are getting reports that an

airplane has just crashed into one of the Twin Towers.”

“Wait just a minute General, we have actual footage of

the airplane crashing into the North Tower!” Cut to video…

“Alice, this is John,” the unknown voice said.  “An airplane

has just crashed into the other tower.  It’s…it’s…well, it’s

just horrible. We’re okay in this tower, I’ll call you later, bye.”

Of course, John was not okay and the return call to Alice never came.

On the walls were quotes from those who had lost loved ones.  The most poignant to me:

“I wished the day would never end, because that day began

with Alan alive, and I wanted to stay in the day he had life.”

So much to see…

Animated flight patterns and timelines of the hijackings appeared on walls mesmerizing those watching…histories and flight patterns of the dozen or more flights the they took as they studied the habits of flight attendants and pilots as months of practice runs were taken in preparation…all of which was chilling.

In the days following the attack and collapse of the towers, hand made pictures were posted all over the city with variances of these messages - hoping against hope:

“Has anyone seen this man (woman)?  If so, please contact___”

“William ____, my father did not come home.  If you know

anything about him, please call ______”

That day while people ran from those buildings, police and firefighters ran into them, doing everything in their power to help people escape the every increasing inferno above.  More than four hundred of them died helping others as the buildings collapsed on top of them.

What can be said, really?

This place struck reverence into my heart. It is in moments like this, that one’s vocabulary fails to provide anything meaningful to express the magnitude of sobriety and feelings.

There are so many things that are still unfolding in my mind, I am uncertain what to say.

Perhaps I can say this.

Every week, I GET to write whatever I like as I carry on my life, and put it up for public view. Whatever the reader feels about the things I say, I am secure that the ‘thought police’ will not knock on my door to take me away.  This, of course, has not historically nor culturally always been the case.

I am grateful for this, because I understand I only have this moment to think about things I would like to say… this moment to write these thoughts…this moment to appreciate that the unexpected future rushing toward me at light speed, may bring with it...

the unknown…the unthinkab…

- ted

How are you living?

“Our house is a very, very fine house with

two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard,

Now everything is easy cause of you…”

- Graham Nash lyricist: Our House

It was as simple abandoned white clapboard two-story house – the photo taken from a low angle on a bleak day emphasizing overgrown weeds and unkempt appearance.

The shot looked to be some 50 to 100 feet away, making this abandoned house appear even more empty…bereft…lonely…cold…unwelcoming.

I never actually saw the house near Nemacolin, Pennsylvania on route 40 some six miles north, as the crow flies, of the West Virginia border. My friend Ann posted it on social media, and the image was enough to trigger a ‘video’ from the archives of my mind.

Columbia, Missouri 1974…

I had ridden a few times, but really did not have a lot of experience with horses - Peg did.  She was a recent divorcé and I was a student at the beginning of graduate work in Missouri.  A mutual friend had set up a horse riding date with her.  It turns out the horses were hers and she loved to ride.

That afternoon, we saddled up and rode through unmarked countryside north of Columbia.  There were no roads as we trotted through the overgrown fields.  I was pleased to be above the brush, certain had we been walking my ankles would have had scratches looking like an experiment in abstract art.

Somewhere during the ride, in the broad landscape of switchgrass and fescue, stood a two story brownish colored, abandoned and weathered farmhouse standing alone like a long forgotten monument to ‘life adventures’ past - nothing else in sight. 

As we rode closer, you could see through the windows into the three rooms in the downstairs. Standing in the stirrups I could see they were bone empty.

The overhang of the covered porch was held up by four tired looking posts, their grey color matched by the weathered flooring they covered – grey…worn… uninviting.  This place had been sitting for a very long time, and I wondered what stories the walls of that old homestead might have whispered…

Stopping for a few minutes, gaze fixed on that old place, my mind drifted to an imaginary time and imaginary place.

Imagination creates…

I saw a young man and woman beginning their lives together. 

Bill and Susan had taken a liking to each other in junior high school, and it continued through high school and university. They married in their 22^nd year and looked forward to life together…the sky was blue!

It was the late ‘60s and Columbia had been the county seat since its incorporation in 1821.  It was a university town even then, as in 1839, 900 folks pledged nearly $120,00.00 to create the first public university on the western side of the Mississippi River. 

By now, the civil war was over and Bill’s father built a small mercantile business in which he worked.  As was often the case in those days, Bill and Susan lived in the family home in the city.  There was room for them all, but they wanted to strike out on their own.

This, of course, was the reason Bill and Susan were looking for a place to call their home.

Somehow they had scraped up enough money to buy a patch of land north of the city.  I imagined them sitting around a table somewhere quietly chatting, sparkling with eagerness, about finally having a home of their own.

Then came the day. “I got the loan today Susan!” he said, his heart racing with excitement.

“I’m taking a chance here,” Mr. Jenkins the banker had said.  “But you are a hard worker Bill and your family have been solid citizens here in Columbia.”

Bill negotiated with Samuel Johnson the landowner and the deal was done!

Later they built this two-story house…insulated the walls and painted it a bright white!  It wasn’t a palace, but it was theirs, and on weekends they would walk the land talking about their future.

The house was pretty big for just the two of them, but they had plans and in the third and fourth years in the life of that house…no that would be wrong…their home, she delivered children, Bill junior, followed the next year by Elizabeth – Betsy to her friends, but that would come later.

In the 10^th year of their marriage the front porch came and Susan painted the flooring a rustic brown, making those four posts multicolored with white, green and light redish bands.  Against the background of the house, they could be seen from quite a distance by folk who came to visit. Susan had a quiet flare.

She loved that porch and on quiet afternoons, when Bill was at work and the children in school, she would sit in the rocker Bill surprised her with on her 34^th birthday, and let her mind drift to her children, husband and gratitude for this place ‘they’ built, loved and lived in. 

Bill died in his 67^th year of an unexpected heart attack.  The children, now grown and living in Columbia tried unsuccessfully to get Susan to move to town with them.

She had steadfastly resisted…this was her home…this is what she knew…this is where everything meaningful in her life had happened. 

“No, dears,” she said, “I belong here…I will be fine.”

She wasn’t fine, of course.  Even though she was in her home where it all had happened, it was by now empty and she was alone.  In truth, she felt empty too.

They found her sitting in her rocking chair on the front porch, grey hair fluttering in the breeze, her head bowed, lifeless eyes closed as if she were in prayer – she was, you know.

It was a warm Sunday morning in June a year to the day that Bill had died…they had come to take her to church.  No one would know how long that year had been for her, but now they were together again…

The homestead?  Well, the kids had families of their own, yet that sturdy old house wasn’t going anywhere and though it could have been given better attention, it stood its ground to the autumn day Peg and I rode by.

Horses, houses and fields…

“That place must be over a 100 years old,” Peg said breaking my daydream and bringing me back to the present starkness of this open and scrub filled landscape upon which the old house had been built, full of love and sorrow – the kind that comes to all of us…the kind that gives our existence texture and richness.

It was time to go, so we headed back to her place, wiped the horses down, put them in the barn.  I thanked Peg for the day and headed home.

Later that night as I sat in my little efficiency apartment, I thought about Bill and Susan.  They were, nothing more than figments of my imagination, but they had ‘come’ to my mind…drifted through as though we were friends with a history.

When I saw that house sitting on the prairie, I experienced my own desire for stability…my own yearning for a place I could call home…my own need for solid ground under my feet…something reliable – something constant.

Over the years, I have come to appreciate ‘places’ DO NOT…CAN NOT…provide a sense of comfort.  It is never about the place, – it wasn’t for my Bill and Susan – rather it was the love…the care…the human connections between…

That picture posted by my friend, reminded me how easy it is to let our houses (minds) sit quietly while the paint fades and the life that once was slowly drifts away.  It takes work, commitment and a little fresh paint now and then to make our house a home and inviting…

Coffee on the porch anyone?  I have an extra rocker…

- ted