Does it feel like a black cloud is hanging over mankind? Like everything is hopeless? Like every day is a struggle through the mire of negativity?
And yet we survive?
Why? How?
It’s because we are coyotes, my friends. And this book is dedicated to coyotes everywhere.
My husband was for many years a financial consultant and manager of a stock brokerage company. He believed in the principle of positivity (never start the day with a negative thought) and therefore was always coming home with new motivational quotes for me and our four sons, to the point that the boys would sometimes hide, or put their faces in their hands, when good ol’ Dad started spouting his bits of inspiration. Such as, “The man on top of the mountain didn’t fall there,” attributed to Vince Lombardi. You could say Robert was a more elite Tante Lulu with her homespun Cajun proverbs.
The most memorable of these were the coyote ones. I remember distinctly the time Robert and I went to a business conference in Atlantic City called the Coyote Seminars. The principle behind this program was that coyotes are creatures forced to live in the wild (can anyone say Wall Street, or this political jungle of modern times?), constantly the target of hunters (CNN, Fox News, etc.) and those determined to reduce their population. The beasts have a bad reputation, for sure. Like, dare I say, some stock brokers?
But did they die off? The coyotes, not the brokers. Oh no! In fact, their numbers increased. They would be found in the forests minus a limb, dragging a metal trap, missing an eye, with several bullet wounds, fur all dirty and mangy, but limping along. In fact, a news report recently showed a male coyote trapped in an iron clamp, and its female mate coming to feed it every day.
The message here is that life is not hopeless, that no matter what life throws your way, you can survive. Yeah, get your crazy on, when necessary, like Simone LeDeux, the heroine of this book. Or get you a little St. Jude, if you are so inclined, like my outrageous Tante Lulu. But most of all, be a coyote.
Now, I must tell you that my husband is retired and has been wheelchair-bound for more than four years, following a medical catastrophe, but he still retains his wonderful sense of humor. When one or the other of us gets depressed, and we do, we’ve been known to give a little coyote howl. We are surviving.
Imagine what the world would be like if we were all out there howling.