I love football season.

No. I rephrase.

Almighty God in the Most Divine of All Kingdoms, forgive me for I love more than my mother this holy football season!

My family knows and respects my one simple request this time of year. It's fine to shout with me at the TV screen. But, do not talk to me during the game. Ever. Unless, of course, it's half-time and you're going to tell me how much the opposing team stinks like three tons of…

Barefoot and empty handed, in the frosty pre-dawn hours of late March, separated only by tangled wisps of breath and steam from a nearby pond, I stared down a wolf. Eye to steely eye. Neither of us advancing nor retreating. Neither of us moving, except inwardly in resolve. He, ash grey, thin and fractured from winter’s threshing, far past hunger, eternally empty, steadfast. Me, a solitary barrier to his single, strongest earthly longing; the mother to his first - in all memory -…