In The Desert Howling With the Coyotes

I’m writing the story of a 45 year old woman who is ready to walk towards her future but is still wrestling with the past. She’s lost, but not completely. She’s searching for a path of true strength for herself.

She knows the direction she wants to walk in, but her head spins with doubt. She struggles to trust…herself, other people. She’s a warrior who’s been holding her shield and sword so long she doesn’t know how to put it down.

But she’s ready to put it down. She’s tired and wants to be in the arms of her lover knowing she makes him feel as safe and good as he makes her feel. But she doesn’t, at least not right now. Instead, her flailing and pushing and pulling, her tormented inner thoughts affect everyone around her and she puts up her armor over and over again, as much to protect herself as to protect the people around her. She’s convinced she does harm to others by simply existing. And maybe she does in her current state. But there’s so much more possible for this beautiful soul.

She has trouble seeing the light she carries. She senses that she’s more than she feels right now. In some ways she knows it. But only sometimes. Other times, the voices of doubt and fear are so overpowering she doesn’t know any truth about herself at all.

So as this story unfolds, I imagine she’ll find herself in the desert howling with the coyotes,

or in the ocean floating in time itself.

And she’ll begin to feel the power that roared from her lips when she was a child alone with her pain,

The power that flexed between her thighs as she gave birth, just a child herself,

The power created when she stood back up after being knocked down by love,

or stood by her child as he told her to let him go, and she refused.

One day she’ll rise with her power, the fire she built herself, and she’ll feel it again…maybe as an overpowering rush or as a subtle filling up of the soul. But this woman, daughter of strength and mother of resiliency and hope…she’s bound for greatness. Even if she doesn’t yet see it. Or feel it.

She’ll find herself in the desert howling with the coyotes.

She’ll find herself in the desert.

She’ll find herself.