Back to the Frogs

I see them in the murky water. Their glossy green heads, still as mossy stones, watch us. One jumps up towards a nearby log, and the sheer size of him astonishes us. Bullfrogs. 

I remember the day along a creek in Virginia when I saw the muddy shore shift and sink and then move apart to show a bullfrog the size of a dinner plate. I was seven years old, and this monstrous, joyful creature opened up a new world of wonder. How can this be? Who made this? How does it live?

For him to reveal himself like this made me feel special, anointed, chosen. I felt connected to mystery and beauty for the first time. I watched the frog move away from me into his secret habitat, into territory I would forever seek along every creek for the rest of my life.

The world was now a place to search and find, to stay very still for, as we wait for shores to change and reveal what we were always looking for.