Very late one evening in the 1980s,
while staying with family in Bennington, Vermont, I was reading in my
room at the back of the house when I heard an unholy piercing scream. I
was petrified and thought to myself, Either an alien has landed in the
backyard or a woman is being murdered next door. The racket continued
but seemed to grow near and then distant. The household's dog lay
quietly asleep at my doorway. Eventually, the noise ceased. In the
morning, my cousin asked how I had slept. I answered, "Fine . . . except
for the eerie screaming in the backyard." She laughed and replied, "Oh,
that's the catamount. He comes down from the mountain every so often
and tramples my garden." I asked why the dog had not stirred and was
told he was deaf.
Sometimes I can very deaf to what is going on in my life. It's an old habit, borne of the need to keep on keeping on when I was younger, when things were particularly difficult. It isn't very helpful now, however. Sticking one's head in the sand to drown out the screaming, that is.
Old habits die hard.
