At 8 o’clock in the evening, my neighborhood howls. Residents come out into their yards and onto their porches and they howl while the bells of the clock at the nearby college ring out the hour.
Last night I left my apartment at 7:47, and instead of walking on the path by the river, I decided to stroll through my neighborhood.
I walked past lawns perfectly manicured and lawns overgrown with white dandelion wishes waiting to be wished.
I saw a grand treehouse, surely the envy of every kid on the block, perched high up in a backyard tree. If I were a kid, I thought, I would never ever leave the adventure of that playhouse.
I saw a garage rooftop covered in moss, crumbling toward the ground, and wondered what treasures might be trapped beneath the impending destruction.
I smelled freshly cut grass and lilacs white and purple and walked through showers of pink Prairiefire crabapple blossoms.
I saw neighbors tilling and planting in their little gardens, stringing up fences to protect from rabbits and squirrels and other unwelcome visitors like the ugly turkeys that prance around as if they own the place.
It seemed that only last week the trees were working so hard to push their leaves out and overnight our little part of the world had turned a bright, lively green. As I walked, I looked off into the distance through lanes of overhanging branches and trees that have lived here for many years. Would that it would never change, I thought, that this color would always be the same.
At 8 o’clock, I heard them, the howlers and the chiming of the clock. I turned my head to listen and smiled into the evening sky. I met a couple who were walking right down the middle of the street. The gentleman said, “Watch out. There are werewolves around here,” and we all laughed.
I turned the corner and walked back toward my apartment, peering now and then into the homes of my neighbors who were watching home improvement shows and playing board games and cleaning up after dinner. I have always enjoyed and felt a little bit guilty about looking in like that, like a Peeping Tom, but if they didn’t want me to see their evening activities they would pull the curtains closed.
I continued down the street, pausing to say hello to a shaggy cocker spaniel who was protecting his little people in their front yard. I walked and got lost in my thoughts – of the dinner party I attended at my friends’ home days before the stay-at-home order went into effect, of the emergency room nurse who shocked me when he put his ungloved hand on mine earlier that day, of this little Mayberry-like section of the city where I live. I kept walking and thinking and peering and pausing, and suddenly my apartment building popped up in front of me.
I should have joined them, the howlers, but I didn’t. Maybe tonight. Crawl out into the night and listen for me.
Being Wendi 