Howl

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by enforced isolation, dragging themselves maskless outdoors at dusk to howl – not at the moon and maybe not to each other, but to declare I am here! I am real! I am alive!

Or something like that.

Maybe I’m laying it on a little thick.

And maybe they aren’t the best minds of our generation. Not theirs, not yours, not mine. In fact most in this quasi-wolfpack are probably quite ordinary.

Yet they howl nightly into the wind. In the midst of our shared, enforced isolation, howling has become a cultural phenomenon.

Have you heard it in your town? Weather permitting, it happens here every night at eight. In an era where the nearest clock is your phone, synchronization is not a problem. The first distant yips are heard at precisely 8pm, and quickly swell into a howling chorus (though some nights are more active than others). The howling is well-distributed, spread far and wide, though by no means is it universal.

Howling is not in my nature, so I don’t do it. But I walk out on the back deck each night to listen.

Different howling styles are identifiable. Some people just open up and let loose a sustained, single-note cry. Others imitate our wolfean brethren: ow-ow-oooowwwww! Still other forms are recognizable: yips and yaps and barks.

One might expect a few comprehensible words (I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!), and someone somewhere must actually verbalize. But I’ve not heard any.

Meanwhile, the communal ritual during this generation-defining health crisis continues.

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With apologies to Allen Ginsberg