The Magic of Spring

    Sometimes magic occurs in small ways that casts a spell on the subconscious. A moment arises that seems insignificant at the time, but it leaves an indelible imprint in the memory. When I was a boy, I experienced this a few times; here’s how I remember it one time.
    Winter trudged up and down the streets like a homeless man in a cold, gray coat and glared through windows at the cozy warmth inside. His icy fingers pried their way into the occasional unsuspecting weekend, and the hint of white dust told of his recent proximity; however, he was mostly no more than a nuisance that folks put up with, and the warmth of a new season steadily pushed him along to some other region. There can be no more subtle thing than when one season melts into another, but if you listen closely enough, you can hear the change.
    It was during this transition each year that magic happened, and a spell was cast on me. Even as old man winter limped away in silence, tiny voices began to speak of newness and warmth. By late February we began to hear the call of spring’s first harbinger, Pseudacris crucifer, the spring peeper. Slowly but surely, these tiny frogs emerged from their hibernation, congregated by the hundreds at puddles and ponds, and started their chorus of “peep, peep, peep” to the chilly, late winter evenings.
It was during this transition that Dad would take me to a particular puddle in the field next to our house. I call it a puddle, but I suppose it was more like a small bog. Part of the year there was a fair bit of water that resided in its shallow bowl, but invariably, come summer’s end, it would be dry, cracked earth. This little puddle was probably twenty or so feet wide, and the prettiest stand of cattails you ever saw grew on its far edge. The rest of its rim was hemmed in tall, swaying grass and whatever other weeds there happened to be – I wasn’t too much into botany back then so I couldn’t tell you. From its borders, the first wave of frogs would begin to peep out their romance to the gathering folds of evening. As night ushered off the daylight and stars winked down through the calm darkness, the chorus rose in a swell from our puddle. It was to this small ecosystem, with its murky water and cattail castles, where Dad and I loved to visit when the peepers began their hymns.
    After dinner, and certainly after dark, Dad and I went wading through the damp grass of the field toward the beckoning sounds of that little bog. When we first arrived, we stood out in the darkened field and just listened, filling our ears with the goodness of it. The smells of damp grass and aging mud intermingled in the dew laden air, and the frogs sang to each other, to the night, to us. I could have stood there for hours listening.
    Eventually we crept closer, anticipation growing in my chest, until we were right on the shore. As we approached, if we made too much noise, the frogs fell silent. If they thought danger was close, they simply stopped calling, which, because of their size, made them extremely difficult to find in the fringes of tall grass. It was finding and catching them, though, that was the apex of the night’s expedition. It was the crowning glory of this father-son journey. Not only did we have to locate one of these tiny amphibians after he had stopped making any noise, I then had to be dexterous enough to pluck him from his perch of grass before he dove beneath the dark surface of the water.
    This game of “boy and frog” began with us standing as motionless as possible until the peepers around us began again to chirp. Then we would pinpoint where a frog was just by listening. I would feel overconfident in my abilities and knew for certain that a frog in the hand was about to be had, but it was never that easy. Time and time again we would pinpoint where we thought a frog should be and turn on our light to search for him only to find empty blades of grass. How utterly sweet and downright satisfying it was, then, when we finally found the miniscule creature! A quick dart of the hand found me holding the night’s prize: ¾ inches of cold, moist and clammy victory!
    As we headed back to the house, a chill blanket descended. The choir of frogs diminished to background music, blending with the rhythm of our steps. Beads of dew sparkled from blades of grass, appearing like spider eyes winking back at us in the bouncing beam of our flashlight. Each note of experience plucked from the dark reverberated in my head as we stopped on the landing. I filled my lungs a final time with the night and rose up on the iridescent wings of its song. Out there in the cool, soft, early spring night I found warmth and contentment. Magic comes in many shapes and sizes, and to this eight-year-old it came like this: time spent with my Dad listening to and learning about nature from the echoes of a little bog.