Wolf Howls
I am obsessed with the moon. Not in an astrological or scientific way, but the way a wolf might tilt its head back amongst dense pines in the night and release an arm-hair-raising salute. The moon always shows up for me: whether on a dark, deserted road in Nevada as a giant Supermoon, the latest boy and I chasing it along the horizon, or as a delicate sliver above the heads of city sunflowers, a quiet promise that there is more good to come, to not give up just yet.
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Popular myth claims wolves as solitary creatures, the archetype of the lone wolf. We imagine them prowling, hunting, and living proudly alone, but in truth, wolves are social. They thrive in packs, their family units, where they gain security, strength, combined resources, and future generations by banding together.
*
My baby sister answers my video call after a couple rings. She’s not a baby anymore at 32 and with her own one-year-old babbling and grinning at her feet. About to turn 40, I’m not young anymore either, but our bodies still hold the memory of caring for each other. She provided soft things like warm hugs and verbalized love, and I gave her hard things: protection, discipline, what not to do. I can tell by her face and the long pauses that she’s sleep deprived. I’ve heard the story many times before—from Wendy, and Rebecca, Katie, and Sofia, my many friends and family with young children— “[insert child’s name] is sick and kept me up all night” or “I’m in charge of childcare so I worked at 4 AM and have been shuttling and taking care of kids since.” But my sister is trying to stay connected, to be there for me, even when she’s exhausted. So she doesn’t hang up and strives to converse. I think about letting her go, about removing one more thing for her to focus on, to spend energy on: me. But what if we always make that choice? Our tie will fade until one day it breaks. I let her make her own decision and choose to reinterpret what I’m given: that chortle was a hearty laugh, that question was insight, insert a joke for her there in the pause. She loves her kid, but it seems hard for her to enjoy him right now. She left “tired” in the dust months ago.
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A second common myth is that wolves howl at the moon. But the howl is a call to the rest of the pack: to meet up, to share a location, or to warn off others. Once, and in some societies still, women banded together. They shared food and raised each other’s children. They lived next door and called for cups of sugar. They cried in each other’s kitchens in the afternoon and then returned to their homes to resume the work of domestic life. The pack used to call to each other, used to hunt together, used to find each other in the wilderness.
*
I spend my days writing, dancing, teaching, traveling, and talking to geographically distant friends. Wendy, who has two kids, tells me she doesn’t call sometimes because she thinks my life is too glamorous for her, that I won’t be interested in what her five-year-old said that day or want to come over to draw chalk figures in the driveway. I wake up on a Saturday to no noise in my recently renovated city condo, to the whites and light beiges of modernity. In the distance sounds the thrum of cars on the road; occasionally one hits a pothole. I wander into the kitchen and stare at its inactivity, at the light reflecting off the pristine marble countertop, into nothingness. Should I make pancakes for myself? I imagine future time passing: me sitting on the counter stool alone with my plate of pancakes. Tick. Tick. Tick. I dole out a bowl of vanilla yogurt instead.
In the mythology that does acknowledge the existence of wolf packs, the lone wolf appears as a rarity, perhaps an oddity, the product of something that went awry. But 5-20% of the wolf population annually engages in dispersal: a mature wolf leaving its pack to find a mate. Temporarily lone wolves, they face greater threats to survival: from packs inhabiting the territories they traverse, because of a diminished hunting capacity, and a potential solitary future should they fail. Pack territories vary between 22 to 2,500 miles. I live fifty-six miles from where I grew up, from where my parents still live. My sister and her mate moved 2,999 miles away. Humans are not wolves, but sometimes I wonder if she left her natal pack to thrive within her own; I push away the knowledge that rejoining a natal pack is rare for wolves and only possible if a lone wolf has not joined or begun a new one.
*
Beyond the dark circles under my sister’s eyes, I see my nephew’s mischievous smile; I can tell he is about to toddle closer to the camera, to grin into my face and wait for a reaction. It makes me laugh, and next he is looking up at my sister adoringly. She might be tired, but her sick kid is having a blast. He is thrilled that both his parents are home, that a playmate is on the screen, and even if he can only feel it and not know it yet, that he is infinitely loved. I imagine that my sister is envious of the uninterrupted night’s sleep I had, or maybe of my extravagant spending on a writing class. I withhold that I am envious of the family she wakes to, that she lulls into sleep beside, of the new pack she’s forming at the edge of ours.
*
The next day I drive to work as the sky lightens. It glows a thin bluish pink, and hidden in plain sight is the full moon. A shade lighter than the surrounding sky, its porcelain cream orb is subtle enough to miss; I know from experience that most people will miss it. Later, the night is black velvet and the moon brilliant and blinding. I wonder if people are like this, if we need contrast, a different perspective, someone to lighten or darken our surroundings so we can see the moon and be reminded of its shine.
*
I play peek-a-boo with my nephew on FaceTime and watch the crinkles around his eyes expand, the gurgle of joy get closer to escaping his lips. My sister’s mood improves as she watches us. Her husband picks my nephew up like an airplane, and we all smile as his head tilts to one side and his arms reach out to embrace his father and then his mother. “Are you living your best life?” I say to him even though he’s too young to understand my question. “Yeah, he is,” my sister says, tired but smiling. For the next hour, we discuss nothing important and sometimes we just move around in tandem, doing what we have, but when we hang up, I am halfway through cooking a solo meal of baked zucchini (most of it will go into tupperware) and my sister takes a nap with her son. I’d procrastinated cutting and sautéeing the zucchini to the brink of rotting because cooking meals for one lost its charm a decade ago, and for a moment, I am simply grateful for my sister’s presence, transient though it may be.
*
It is not myth that the she-wolf is worshipped as an ancient symbol of fertility and motherhood, like the wolf that weaned Romulus and Remus, birthing an empire, but she has also become a symbol of power and independence, a modern wildness like Shakira’s loba, one that sometimes walks alone and speaks her mind no matter the cost. I want to believe that these wolves can stay in the same pack, that nurture and independence and power and fertility will keep calling to each other in the night, will celebrate and hunt together, even from a great distance, even as they answer other calls.
*
The next work day comes and goes, and I drive home in silence, surrounded by the emptiness of four passenger seats, another full day teaching someone else’s kids in the rearview. I drive towards evening, toward the fading of light and the moment I will tilt my eyes upward; I wonder what the moon will look like tonight.
-Lourdes Fernández
Lourdes Fernández spends her days correcting “Me llamo es” as a high school Spanish teacher and helping friends buy and sell houses as a Massachusetts realtor. She writes about identity, relationships, and healing, and otherwise you’ll find her in the studio dancing, abroad traveling, and chasing the New England sunshine. She completed Grubstreet's Memoir and Essay Incubator writing programs, and her memoir received Honorable Mention from Miami Book Fair Emerging Writer Fellowship 2025.