A big gathering of frogs is called an army. I had never seen an army of frogs before, let alone become involved on a personal level with such a gathering. That happened to me three days ago, while I was camping. It was memorable.
My mind strolls a lot while I'm camping. I have little experiences that happen in big detail. I feel alive. I think I'm doing the best I can with my life, even though my heart is broken. Maybe I'll get some credit for that on the mystical day of reckoning. When camping, I make decisions and have a project to tend to. I like it. Those reasons are enough to take me down new roads.
This week, I camped in salty Grayland/Westport Washington, with no boundary between my state park spot and the Pacific Ocean. Yesterday was just my second day, and I was faced with the question as to whether to bail on a four-day trip. The alternative was to ride out a dangerous storm coming my way.
The low pressure front approaching caused a mixed lot of fishing and sightseeing boats back to Westport marina earlier than usual. I happened to be there, and I saw the resulting boat traffic. It was an unexpected and stirring sight that made me think of things like peril and bravery. I took photos of rusty boats for an artist friend, and thought about leaving V staying. I watched the water rising, trembling.
While towing to the coast, I had put off making a potty stop when I was about a half-hour from my destination. By the time I parked my trailer in site 99, my bladder was in dictator mode. I chose to go in the woods behind my spot, rather than try to unlock my trailer, or run to the camp bathroom. For everyone over sixty, I know you're with me on not fumbling for keys or running when you have to really, really go.
How was I supposed to know the woods would be carpeted with an army of traveling frogs? I noticed this a little too late to shoo them. Maybe I peed on some, I thought. I had no idea if I had murdered frog(s) in the woods. I never was a natural at grasping chemistry. I located a bowl inside my camper, filled it with water, and offered it to the frog world as a complimentary decontamination site. Still, I wish I could erase the thought of innocent and unsuspecting frogs, a surprise attack. Casualties of me.
What causes an army of frogs to sojourn through one particular area versus another? It must be a food source. Or a water source. I wonder if they were traveling because of the approaching storm, which I knew nothing about at the time of my inadvertent frog defilement.
I ran over a large toad with a push mower fifty years ago. This is still a vivid memory. It wasn't dead, but it was bleeding. I ran into the house and got my father's styptic pencil from his shaving kit and raced outside to try and stop the bleeding. After doctoring the wounded, I returned to the house again. I had to replace the pencil and straighten the kit, and I wanted to fetch a bandage. When I came back to the toad, bandage in my hand, my large and bloody patient was gone. Hopped off, I hoped then. I still hope. The guilt I felt at the time was like a new layer of hot skin. As I mentioned earlier, it's a vivid memory.
Because I was a child, I worried for a long time if my father would be able to detect essence of toad on his blood pencil, as I called the anti-hemorrhagic pencil back then. So I had guilt and I had fear.
I also regret something I did at Lindsey Creek when I was eleven or twelve. From the creek, I would launch clay rockets into outer space. I poked pockets in clay balls and inserted a little creek water and a tadpole into each of the pockets. I wanted to see if tadpoles could live in space capsules, the way Russian monkeys were doing at the time. I vaguely remember giving up my space program with enough data to demonstrate that, no, they cannot.
I didn't want anyone to know I was conducting these experiments. I knew what I was doing wasn't right, but I did it anyway. I realized later in life that I was objectifying the tadpoles and robbing them of their future. I can't remember how old I was when I awakened to feelings like regret, the responsibility of humans for innocent creatures, empathy, and shame. A curious child unsupervised can be a danger to others.
I saw a movie once called "Magnolia". It was a critical success and the characters were memorable, especially the grief-wracked wife of a dying man and a fumbling police officer who misplaced his weapon. At the end of the movie, not a lot was reconciled in the story line. It ended with huge frogs falling from the heavens above onto car windshields, grass and pavement . It was a gruesome raining of frogs. I think the same thing happens in the King James Version of the Holy Bible. This, and other parts of that popular book, are not comforting at all if you ask me.
With the storm approaching Westport, seeing the boats and thinking of bravery made me want to ride out whatever was on its way. A friend was also camping at this park, and she was leaving early. I told her I was going to stay one more night. Once I made that decision, I envisioned my dogs, Oliver and Miss Kitty, floundering in the 30 to 40 foot waves predicted for the next few nights. I saw myself driving home in strong winds, my little teardrop camper swaying uncontrollably into a Volvo station wagon filled with pre-schoolers. Frogs raining from heaven. I decamped and towed myself, the dogs and my gear back to Edmonds that day, which was yesterday afternoon. As it happens, wind gusts reached forty-miles an hour not too long after I left.
Today: Thoughts of a raging storm that I reluctantly decided to miss. Thoughts of biblical events that defied the laws of physics. Thoughts of the chemistry of human urine and its effect on frogs of the northwest. Of the efficacy of styptic pencil on bleeding amphibians. Of tadpoles in space. Of guilt and empathy. Of risk avoidance related to the well-being of others. How many details of one's life will be raked over on that mystical day of reckoning?
Will I get any credit at all for trying to make the best of things, and do no harm?
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