"A nomad I will remain for life, in love with distant and uncharted places." -Isabelle Eberhardt
"A nomad I will remain for life, in love with distant and uncharted places." -Isabelle Eberhardt
The Coyote Myth: Wild and Urban
Aimee Geurts • Jul 05, 2020

I don’t know how many times I’ve read Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer. I Imagine it is about as many as I’ve read The Poisonwood Bible , also by Kingsolver. A lot. I love both of these stories and, after so many readings, all of the characters feel like old friends. One of the characters in Prodigal Summer, Deanna, is a forest ranger in Zebulon National Forest. She lives in a little cabin, hikes around all day doing trail maintenance, has books and food delivered to her and she tracks coyotes in her free time. Sounds like my kinda life. It is through Deanna’s narrative I first became interested in coyotes. Growing up in rural North Dakota, I remember hearing them in the evening, making strange noises and doing what seemed like talking to each other. Now I know that is exactly what they were doing. One thing Deanna shares in Prodigal Summer is how coyotes, when being hunted or their numbers put in danger, actually produce bigger litters of pups.

I very recently reread Prodigal Summer , as pandemic has me reading like a maniac and I have a lot of time to revisit my favorites. Shortly after I finished, I was at my mom’s house and noticed her copy of Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History by Dan Flores. Flores gives biological information on coyotoes and also shares their importance in Native American religions, including a couple of folk tales about Old Man Coyote. In this book, I learned Coyoacan , the neighborhood I stayed in while in Mexico City, means the place of the coyotes. The name coyote is from an Aztec word in their Nahuatl language: coyotl.

The hard to read sections of this book are the parts where he explains government efforts to eradicate coyotes, after (mostly) successfully eradicating the grey wolf. I haven’t yet finished the book because it got to be too much to read about the poisons they use on coyotes and the suffering the coyotes endure due to the poisons. Pure torture. And yet, the coyote does not surrender. Instead, they breed more and have larger litters. And yes, they are sometimes found in our cities. Where they eat rats and other small animals that we humans want nothing to do with. Yet, we chase them out of urban areas, too.

Do you have coyote story? I have seen one in the alley behind my home in Park Hill. Otherwise, I haven’t encountered any since leaving North Dakota. I hope someday to see them again.

Coyote tale resources:

American Indian Trickster Tales (Myths and Legends) by Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz

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The Life and Times of the Tiny Dictator

By Aimee Geurts • 07 Feb, 2023
An Ode to Midge

The Spines of Books

By Aimee Geurts • 29 Jan, 2023
A poem

What if the next adventure is to indulge in no adventure at all?

By Aimee Geurts • 20 Jan, 2023
In Great Circle Jaime says, “The compromise is that I’m living day to day without making any sweeping decisions.” I realize I have fallen into this way of thinking. Whispering to myself, everything is fine today. Although I do still enjoy imagining other lives, get caught up in the swell of possibility, for the first time in a long time I feel settled.  Jamie’s sister Marian says, “Is that compromise? It sounds a bit like procrastination. You don’t think you’ll go back to being how you were before, do you?” I know I won’t go back to being how I was before. I know that today. I’m not sure what I’ll know tomorrow. Reading articles about women realizing they are tired of working the corporate ladder and feel vindicated in my low-paying jobs with no benefits. When the farmer in Spain doesn’t reply to my emails about a room and board work agreement, when the Airbnb host in Greece offers me his camper van instead of his home, I decide it’s all too much and I give up. I’m not upset about it. I’m relieved. Instead, I make easy plans to see the Redwood Forest, right here in the good ol’ U. S. of A. I plan to stop in Medicine Bow, WY on my way from Denver to Bismarck next time I’m there. My next adventure is right around the corner instead of a nine-hour flight away. I make plans to make less plans. I stop looking for more jobs. The low-paying jobs I have now are quite fulfilling and they pay me enough to cover my health insurance and put a little aside. What they give me is time. Time to have lunch with my sister-in-law on her birthday. Time to take a 4-day weekend to see my new niece. Time to take a walk downtown on a Wednesday and bring Roxy a sandwich while she slings books at the low-paying bookstore where I no longer work. Time to read all the books in my house. Time to volunteer in the middle of the day. Call it compromise. Call it procrastination. I call it feeling settled.
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