The Little Things
By Michael Erlewine
The bullfrog had climbed onto a mass of floating vegetation. I was still quite a distance away and moving closer very slowly, so as not to spook him. For a long time, he was out there facing me, but in an instant, he suddenly changed position and sat looking away as you see here.
He was there for so long that I was able to switch cameras on my tripod so that I could use a camera with a 100 megapixel sensor and thus have a larger frame from which to crop down to just the frog, as you see here.
What I see and what you see are the same image, but also different. You are probably not familiar all that much with frogs. For me, frog watching goes back to when I was just a little kid in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, however, that little kid was still the same me, and from early on I very much loved frogs and all living critters.
When I was confirmed as a teenager in the Roman Catholic Church, I chose the name Saint Francis of Assisi as my confirmation name because both he and I loved animals… a lot.
So, when I see this (probably a male) frog sitting there, facing away, still wet from climbing out of the water on this 83 degree F day in the hot afternoon sun, me standing on a dirt road near a swamp, a turned-around baseball cap on my head so I could better look through the camera viewfinder… I see and feel something I have loved for probably some 80 years by now. And I celebrate this in the spring of every year.
For me frogs are benign creatures, who harm no one other than what they may find to eat.
My heart races and, as they say, it jumps for joy, just because the two of us are here and now alive in this swamp on this hot and sunny day.
I have caught and measured hundreds and hundreds of amphibians (frogs, toads, and salamanders) over the years. I have crawled through the caves of Texas and the southwest looking for blind salamanders, spent long nights in the dark of night with kerosene lanterns capturing and releasing hundreds of salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum, etc.) while they migrated to the vernal ponds, measuring and then releasing them.
There is more to convey, yet it is inexplicable, beyond what words can frame in language. The frogs and I are kindred spirits although we cannot converse or even get close to one another.
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Of course, as mentioned I have caught hundreds of frogs, toads, and salamanders in years past and taught each of my kids and grandkids how to catch frogs and amphibians, how to hold them in their hands without harming them, and then gently release them.
There is happiness that critters like frogs bring out in me. Just visually seeing them makes me happy, knowing they are there, and being with them. I feel the same way about dogs. Of course, I like people too, but with frogs, it just is a very simple joy.
And on this very warm spring day, the frog on his lily pad and I in my seersucker shirt standing on a hot country road looking into a swamp and sharing this day in space and time.
I need more days like these and to suffer less from the will of corrupt politicians and the waging of wars. I’m not ignoring the turmoil in the world around me, just trying to counterbalance it with something other than the shock of the daily news.
Here is a song written and sung by my daughter May Erlewine that fits right in.
May Erlewine “Tiny Beautiful Things”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYaRlw8kU2o
[Photo my me.]
EMAIL Michael@Erlewine.net Note: If you would like to have access to other free books, articles, and videos on these topics, here are the links: StarTypes.com.
As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.
