Healthy Inspiration from a Howling in the Night

I live in an urbanized inner-ring suburb, but am lucky enough to be in a tract of land between 2 creeks. Creeks make wonderful local migration routes for wild animals: if the waterway is not in culvert, the immediate land is often not developed commercially and the animals have a constant water supply, so creatures can make their homes nearby these creeks and travel from points south all the way up to Lake Erie. Indeed, I often see deer, fox, groundhog, and more on my daily walks.

But my favorite sighting is usually a rare one for me. I love coyotes. I usually see one or a pair of them once a year, but they are (rightfully) wary of humans and usually find a way to keep themselves hidden. I haven't had a clear view of a coyote is over 9 months, but last night, at two separate times, I could hear them yipping and howling somewhere in the green space about 1/16th of a mile from my house. Ah! The howling of a wild dog! There is no more beautiful music to my ears. Even as the temperatures have plummeted into the forties at nightfall, I still flung open all the windows to better hear them calling in the night.

I cringe at the fear-based attitude of the timid who get hysterical with worry and claim we are all going to be overrun with unpredictable predators. This under-informed crowd is sure that their teenagers will be mauled while taking out the trash if we don't hire sharpshooters to cull the packs of wild canids threatening the American Way.

Bah. The coyotes won't eat you. They will avoid you. It's fine if you'd like to bring your overweight and elderly cat inside at night, but you will most certainly not have to fight off rabid packs of coyotes with firearms and blowtorches. These dog-like creatures just want to pounce on some rodents, track some deer, keep watch over the woods. And we should all feel privileged that we might have the opportunity to witness the pure poetry of their long legs running. We should all feel comforted that in spite of our failed housing tracts, drive-up strip malls, and hissing highways, that the health and power of the natural order somehow prevails.

This natural order extends to all things. So as we worry over childhood obesity and growing concerns about our national health, we can still allow ourselves the quiet reassurance that nature wants us all to be fit and strong and to succeed in our place within the natural world. So, some of us will succeed in good health despite cultural odds stacked against us. Nature wants each of us, coyote or Costco shopper, to thrive in the habitat set before us.

And I will eat well toward that end.