Contributor: Susan Brown
A tree frog was singing its heart out in the overgrown shrubs near my window this morning. In the Pacific Northwest, it’s not uncommon to hear the symphony of these tiny peepers. But we’ve had a week of freezing temperatures and spring is long gone.
Yet one frog is still singing.
Maybe it forgot to update its calendar. Maybe there was a wisp of warm air enticing it out from hibernation under a bed of fallen leaves. Maybe the soft buzzing of late insects lured it out for one more snack. Who knows why, but the frog sat on the near-bare branches and filled the air with melody.
Seasons turn. Creatures around us sleep or slip away. I stock up on comfort food and books, and yet, somehow prompted by the darkening days, wander outside to see the scarlet and gold of swirling leaves. Horses in their pasture across the street dip their heads and tear up the last of the green grass. Light frost silvers their blankets.
Who else wanders into the quiet seasons to be delighted by the song of the frogs?
A writer I follow, who struggles with an auto-immune disease, asked on Facebook about what health challenges her readers faced. So many. So many people mentioned how they coped with handicaps ranging from physical limitations to emotional devastation. They spoke of friends and family and books that allowed them to soar through time and space, to have their difficulties and loneliness eased in the universality of shared stories and dreams. Of struggles faced together.
Does a frog dream?
Probably not. But it sings through spring and summer and even into fall, despite the cold and dark. As do so many of us – because it’s the best we can do.
At Courageous Connections, caring flows from one to another through the horses, through the instructors, through the people who, despite what life has thrown at them, find the resilience to reach out. Unbounded connections flow from one to another, celebrating what it means to be human. What it means to sing in the darkening days.