The Rest of a Bullfrog

The Swirling Eddys of Time

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
– Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things

The other day I hiked up a small canyon in the bluffs along the Illinois River. The trail head was innocuous enough, a small wooden sign: Illinois Canyon ↑ , and a modest path leading into the woods. The canyon stream too, at first encounter was still and quiet, lethargic in the regional drought, and the path unremarkable except for how it appeared cracked in places - evidence of wetness that once was.

Not far along, however, sandstone formations started to emerge through the foliage, towering, layered curving swirls of solid color, so I had to crane my neck back to see the top, far above.  The product of catastrophic floods 20,000 year ago, and subsequent river action, the trail guide said. I saw far up the wall a curved hollow, cylindrical and smooth, the product, I thought, of some river eddy, long before any human set foot near this place

.

At the end of the main canyon, there was a pool with a tiny waterfall flowing into it, like song flowing smoothly over a bottom lip – twinkling, pristine. Lush green trees - not just one green, but a symphony of greens - provided welcome leaf pattern-shading shelter, with occasional patches of blue sky.  The light reflected off the moving water onto the canyon wall in intricate twirling patterns, like one might see while diving in a shallow Caribbean reef, a thousand golden dancers: fire on the sandstone shore.  A turtle was perched on a log near the middle of the pond, spotlighted in a patch of sunshine, occasionally stretching her neck or a leg as if preparing for some later show. The space spoke peace: tranquility defined. Of course it took a moment to settle into it, to shrug off the impending doom of work on Monday, the stress of whether to quit, the worry of the worthlessness of my little life, it took time to be here, and carve out this little moment, an eddy in the rushing river of time.

I meandered out on a fallen log, balancing, testing every step, hoping, I suppose, for a slightly better view of the cascade across the pond.  At the end of the log, I was surprised to notice, there in the mud, a large bullfrog, his grizzled green back cool, partially submerged in the slowly moving stream.   His eyes, large and open, seemed to look up at me, but also away, taking in the full surrounding scene, but also not - partially submerged in some other, inner world I wasn't privileged to see. I thought he might be startled by my presence, and rushed to grab for my phone camera, initially worried he might move. I snapped my pictures rapidly, at first, but then with slightly more care: now zooming in, and how about if I get a little better angle here, a step to the left? Eventually, I tired of pictures, and sat down to watch the frog

.

Time passed. I felt a seed of impatience in my chest, an offspring, I suppose of my worship of efficiency, a rushing life bowed to the gods of productivity and speed. I was tempted to splash the water, perhaps throw a stick. Surely that frog will move! As I sat and waited, I looked back around me, locating the turtle, the moving patterns on the rock wall.  I spotted a water snake, a few feet to my right, also partially submerged, at the edge of the water, blended into the soft cool mud. I got up and snapped a few pictures of this new discovery, but was drawn, with time, back to the great bullfrog. Still, he sat.

I stood and watched him, minute after minute, admiring his grasp of time, his peaceful ability to submerge in that place and just be. And slowly, I started to awaken to his position. As I stood there, finally still, I began to more fully notice the scene around me, as if after viewing from a great distance, I’d at last arrived. What I had first taken as a sort of lazy calm, I now saw was filled with activity.  Long-legged insects flitted across the water, a tread lighter than Jesus, no boats in sight. Small fish of many shapes and sizes moved quickly about their important journeys, living out their lives from rock to rock. Leaves floated on the water – here’s one still green, only recently fluttered down from a tree.  A feather stuck under a rock - I first thought it was some sort of fish – leaves an impression. What bird, I wonder, what circumstance, led it to lie here? And in the middle of this bustling scene of activity and brightness and joyful peace, unmoving and at rest, this frog. Oh to hold time as a frog.

I eventually scrambled around to find other small creatures, and after a while our party departed... and all this time, the frog, at peace in the stream, holding his position, as the waters flowed by.

I'm reminded reflecting now of something we saw earlier that day: we were looking from a high bluff down at the wide river below, watching the water run over the many-gated dam, looking for the glint and ripples of fish jumping - so quick, did you see it?  Easy to miss, but the ripples are still there. Anyway, there were pelicans - great, white, majestic birds - floating just downstream of the dam, tiny dots of white and gold against the great golden-brown river far below - a river, I've since learned, which flows from Chicago and the icy pure waters of Lake Michigan, meets the Mississippi, and then down to the gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean, and the great waters that engulf our planet, itself a blink of blue in the eons of cosmic eternity.  But here, in western Illinois, one pelican had broken away from the others, and had found a swirling eddy, a miniature whirlpool at the foot of the dam, some quirk of current from the confluence of concrete and metal at that specific point. The pelican had settled into the whirlpool, floating around and around, paddling a little to stay afloat, but at apparent ease; he seemed playful almost, a child on a merry-go-round, laughing, spinning, having the time of his life. A couple other pelicans seemed to watch from a safe distance. "There goes Ed again", we joked they'd say. "Use your wings now, Eddy, get free!  Fly back to the pack, and our journey downstream!" But Eddy stayed for at least as long as I watched, till my friends moved on down the path, and I at last turned away to follow.