Slipping into Sound

The Sound of Frogs, Of Course

I went out to Huntley Meadows — a park in Virginia — yesterday.

Do you have a place in your city or town that everyone’s been telling you about for years that for some reason you never go to, maybe because everyone’s been telling you about it for years?

I have friends who have been telling me that I *had* to go to Huntley Meadows for  years. I have a colleague whose husband is an ornithologist at the *Smithsonian*, for pity damn’s sake, and the two of *them* go birding there. It’s not even all that far, just a 25 minute drive from me.

Eventually, I had to face facts: I wasn’t going because I was being an ornery pain in the ass. I knew I should get over it. And yesterday was gorgeous — I could feel Huntley Meadows calling my name. So I went, alone. If I was going to be disappointed, fine; if I was going to kick myself, I’d rather kick myself in solitude.

Huntley Meadows covers a lot of ground. I got there on the late side, to miss the crowds and to catch the setting sun. I kicked myself across the boardwalk that crosses the marshland and I kicked myself back again, and I didn’t even see great swaths of the park. 

The first thing to hit when you step on the boardwalk is the frogs. An absolute wall of sound, a cacophony. Turn your sound ON and UP for this one.

The frogs here are, I believe, spring peepers, but their songs and habitat reminded me a little of the reed frogs in the Okavango Delta in Botswana.

Source: Hannah the WanderFinder

The reed frogs sound, it’s said, like wine glasses clinking; here’s a video someone else took of that delicate, yet somehow powerful & pervasive sound.

I’ve already mentioned that I took my first safari, almost accidentally, a few months after my Dad died. It was such an unbelievable event in my life, such an Eat/Pray/Dance/Love/Buffet moment (or whatever it is — I haven’t actually read the book, but I think I get the premise, probably), such a whoa-this-whole-life-thing-might-be-worth-living-after-all, that as soon as I got back, I told my Mom — also deep in mourning — that we should go. Together. As soon as possible.

Which is how I ended up taking my 75-year-old mother to Botswana and surrounding countries for the one-year-anniversary of my Dad’s death.

The moment we landed, though, I realized that, while of course extremely special and wonderful, I wasn’t really going to be able to relax much on this trip. I wasn’t going to relax when the monkeys were stealing my Mom’s food. I wasn’t going to relax when elephants — magical, gorgeous, enormous elephants — walked close, past the picnic we enjoyed, all alone, on the actual anniversary of Dad’s death.

And I definitely wasn’t going to relax when, under the broiling sun, my Mom — already wilting a bit and anxious to get to our hotel — began walking out, by herself, crossing the bridge from Zambia to Zimbabwe, while my feet were stuck in the anti-mad-cow-disease-bleach, the immigration guards’ German Shepard’s barring their teeth and growling after her, the heavily armed soldiers shouting, “stop!” (She did. Everything was fine. My heart skipped several beats, but I was fine fine fine.)

It was not until we were in Botswana, not until we slipped into a boat they called the mokoro, and paddled into the reeds and the night and the sound, that overwhelming frog sound, that I felt my worries being stripped of me. It was as if there was no room in the world for the sound of the frogs, and also my worry. Since the frogs existed, my worry could not.

Maybe you’re not a pain in the ass, maybe you’re a delightful person.

But, if you are a PITA, as I clearly am, I’m wishing you a thousand frogs, or a thousand blooms, or a thousand birds — all the blossomings of spring to take us PITAs out of ourselves for a little while, and bring us peace.