Magic Things: The Wolf That Was Not a Wolf On My Road
e.e. cummings, chickpea soup, hygge
The steady hum of commuter traffic from Ellsworth and inland Hancock County to Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park was enough to bore any motorist traveling on Route 3 through Trenton, Maine. But my Subaru’s funky noise kept me on edge. That, plus, I was heading to work with a boss who liked to invite me on dates and change the words to songs like “Pop Goes the Weasel” to feature me. I needed to leave that job.
Soon.
That was what was going through my head as I rounded the corner past the falling down, asbestos-sided buildings that used to be Romer’s Farm. The woods and marsh of Trenton was to my right. The Jordan River was to my left. But my whole focus was on right in front of me.
A swear, worthy of my boss, left my lips as a canine ran across the two-lane highway in front of me. It was big—bigger than my Great Pyrenees—and its muzzle was boxy.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “That was a wolf.”
Two seconds later, as I was looking into my rearview mirror, another one ran behind my car.
There are no wolves in Maine. There used to be, but we poisoned and trapped them all away. That’s what everyone tells me when I ask. And I know this.
But the rest of the twenty-minute ride to work, I’m positive that what I saw was not a coyote.
When I get to work, I tell Bobbie, our office administrator who sits at the front desk.
“We have a lot of coyotes,” she says.
And then I tell my boss.
He raises an eyebrow and says in his I-know-everything voice. “You know it was a coyote.”
“It was not a coyote,” I announce, putting my things on my desk. “It’s muzzle was wrong.”
“Oh, and how was its muzzle wrong, staff wildlife expert?” he asked, standing right up against my desk now that I was sitting at it, penning me in, tone all condescending.
“It’s muzzle was broad. It was not narrow.”
“It was probably a couple of huskies then. Huskies are always getting loose,” he says.
“I’m going to call the Maine game service,” I say.
“Ha. Good luck with that.”
And he moves away, taking his smell of stale cigarettes and Old Spice deodorant with him.
I know now, that wolves and coyotes have bred with each other in Maine. That they have become something other and that is a beautiful thing. It’s as beautiful as being right and wrong at the same time and as beautiful as believing in yourself no matter what.
I like to remember that wild animal running across the road and the gasp it made in my heart.
I hope you get to have something—to see something—magical this week, something beautiful and comforting.
AS I WAS WRITING THIS
Because we have a newspaper, (I know! I know! That’s a little weird), I listen to the scanner and while I was writing this (yesterday so Sunday), something intensely sad happened across the island at the same time as so many families on our island were celebrating the graduation of their seniors.
And it made me think about how wolves run in packs, they cluster together to stay strong. There is a lesson there, right? There is a lesson in love and empathy and unity and a comfort there.
Khalil Gibran once wrote,“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”
He also wrote, “Yesterday is but today’s memory, tomorrow is today’s dream.”
THE POEM
Somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
From Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E. E. Cummings, edited by George J. Firmage.
THE SOUP THIS WEEK IS A CHICKPEA THING
This soup is really pretty chill. Em, my kiddo, puts hot sauce in it, but to be fair she does that to everything. It’s adapted from here.
WHAT GOES IN IT
¼ cup olive oil, divided
1 onion, medium, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, medium, sliced
1 celery stick, chopped
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 rosemary sprig , leaves only, minced
2 cans chickpeas, 14 ounces each, drained
3 cups vegetable stock, unsalted
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
2 lemons, juice
1 tablespoon fresh dill, optional
HOW TO MAKE IT
Put ⅛ cup of the olive oil in a soup pot and put it on medium heat
Saute onion in there for about 2 minutes
Add garlic. Cook about 30 seconds
Add the celery, carrots and herbs (rosemary and oregano).
Add the chickpeas, stock, salt, pepper.
Let it come to a simmer.
Once it does, cover it and cook for about 25 minutes.
Check it out. Do the carrots seem cooked/tender? You’re good to go.
Taste it. Turn off the heat.
Add pepper, salt, lemon juice and the rest of the olive oil. Add dill if you are not married to my husband and therefore think dill is the devil.