Seeking the Wolf

(this blog post best viewed while listening to Of Wolf and Man from Metallica Black)

Shapeshiiiiiift!

I've had this song on repeat in my car for three days now.  This is unusual.  (Not the song-on repeat-for-days part.  The part where it is this song.  Usually if something from Metallica Black is on repeat, I'm off to Never Never Land with Enter Sandman.) On my way home today, I realized why.

I'm seeking the wolf.

While we were in Olympia, we toured Wolf Haven, a fabulous facility that provides care for captive-born wolves after people who thought it would be cool to have one for a pet realize they are in WAAAAY over their heads.

Our tour guide explained that it's not that it's really really hard to tame and train a wolf.  It's that it can't be done.  They get to be three-ish, and it's time to challenge the pack leader, and they just do what they were born to do, and the person is all surprised and asking, "Why did he turn on me?"

And that's the part of myself that I'm looking for.  The part that kindergarten and first grade and learning to raise my hand and color inside the lines could not tame and and could not train.

This is the part of me that married the man I was crazy in love with instead of taking my mother's advice and marrying for money.  This is the part of me that walked into the English Department of my university and changed my major from something much more practical to something that was more me.  This is the part of me that donated all my pastel colored clothing and threw out all my beige eyeshadow.  This is the part of me that saw my first pair of stompy boots and had to have them.

I know she is in there.  And I desperately need to speak with her.  I need her to tell me what I was born to do.  There is a pack leader I need to challenge, and I need to remember how to howl and how to growl.

So here I am, nose to the wind, with Metallica on repeat.  It's later than you realize.  Shapeshift!