It creeped in before we were aware. The holidays are behind, the decorations are put away, the fruit cake all dried and hardened to a lump of ugly has been thrown out for the critters to pick through, then the COLD days turn colder. School is back in session.
Sigh!
Fog of memory clears.
On one of those late January Sunday afternoons of laying beside the wood burning stove or fireplace all wrapped in that ratty old blanket playing monopoly or checkers we scatter the pickup sticks and jacks to answer the urge to breathe fresh air. So outside we go to walk in circles, look at the dried stalks in the flower beds and try to imagine what it looked like back in June.
The sun slants and glows.
The cold winds lay in the late afternoon.
THEN, I hear IT.
IT is frogs. Just at dusk, the ponds are alive with those little amphibians. They are laying spawn that will turn into millions of tiny black specks hanging in globs of clear jell that will turn into tadpoles that will grow tails and in about eleven weeks be tiny frogs. Only a few of those millions will make it to froghood. And so it goes.
But, and this is where it always gets good for me. That crescendo makes me happy with the memory of wading in the edges of ponds to gather frog eggs into a mason jar for looking at and taking to school to put in the aquarium.
We spent many Sunday afternoons in wading about barefooted in frigid pond water to scoop up globs of spawn or dragging a stick through the mess to see them seperate and float away. Sometimes we saw a full grown frog nearby, most often not.
Shoes and socks abandoned way back there on clumps of dried sedge grass against a stump, dungree cuffs rolled to scabby kneecaps, sweater arms wet and drooping, snotty noses streaming, we splashed and played. January was so much fun and held the promise of better things to come.
The trees at the edge of the ponds held nests of squirrels, tangles of spanish moss and the parasite, mistletoe. We stepped around cypress knees or used them for stepping to deeper water for floating sacs of frog eggs. The water was too cold for snakes to menace us, we focused on more important fun things.
January is the time of year when the pine trees release the most wonderful smell of pitch from the needles.
January allows beautiful patches of moss to grow against clumps of black compacted leaves and straw that is becoming soil. I imagine it as carpet for the critters in the woods.
The trees are leafless. Things like squirrels nests show. Maples show the red in their limbs as a first notice of the springtime to come.
I stop and listen to what has aways been the voices of my ancestors whispering secrets up there in the pines. I know for sure this is imagination, but my imagination is a sweet gift from God to this inquistive minded child.
A chill runs down my spine.............
A memory of my Grandma Minnie Smith allows me to remember she was the one that told me to listen to the "Ancients" because they wanted us to remember them.
As the sun dropped earlier in those January days, the shadows in the ponds started to look spooky. We held our jars of frog eggs or tadpoles as if it was filled with precious cargo. We slid and slipped off those cypress knees or clumps of dried grasses or half rotten tree stumps to sloop down into tanic water and get wet up to our waist. Did we care at the moment,
No!
But, we suffered for our fun.
Just at the edge of dark we put back on our shoes and ran home with our jars of frog eggs sloshing about. Our feet and legs were usually bloodied and stinging by now from all the scratches caused by sawbriers and cuts from dried pond grasses.
Back home Mama fussed as she rubbed Vaseline on our feet and legs while threatening to pour out our future frogs.
We hovered the fireplace and old stove to thaw. We hadn't noticed the cold while we were in the pond.
Fun had to be had and understood.
Cold as it is, January held fun for us. You just had to be there.
January is the time for some things to rest and others to start a new life cycle. I love January.
January brings me a birthday every year by just a few hours.
***I'm outside today and hear the peepers. I'm ten years old again. I have the urge to ride the John Deere Gator out to the pond and look around the edges for globs of floating frog eggs.
I heard them singing or was it tinnitus.
Thank you Father for allowing me my memories.
