:: Saturday, April 12, 2003 ::

Life Without the Frogs

Lying in bed last night I realized how long it's been since I've been back here. I mean really, mentally been here - noticing the nuances of island life and really appreciating it. My parents were snoozing away below me and I suddenly realized it was quiet - dead quiet. The sort of quiet that happens in a horror movie right before the knife falls. The calm before the storm. To be honest with you, I was becoming a little afraid. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, our chorus of frogs started singing away with brilliant cadence, like a symphony in 'ribbits.'

I forgot how powerfully loud they can be, even with our pond sprawling peacefully quite a fair distance from my window. It always used to weird me out how they would both start and stop all together like an orchestra performing. I remember coming home in the wee hours from parties, or nights spent driving around stealing gnomes, or other such delinquent activities, and standing in my kitchen making midnight snacks. I would be humming along to the froggy chorus, everyone else in the house asleep, and suddenly it would halt, leaving me in deafening silence. It was in those moments that I would realize that with all the lights on anyone could see into my kitchen, but I couldn't see out. I felt naked - vulnerable - afraid. Like a performer in the spotlight, I couldn't see my audience. It should be noted that I was deathly afraid of the dark until the Grade 11. Imagine a high school student too afraid to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. That was me.

Needless to say, I prefer it when they suddenly start as opposed to when they suddenly stop.

Anyway, last night was a typical froggy night - from silence to music in about a second. Usually I wonder what makes them start and I can never figure it out, but last night it was clear: about five seconds after they began, rain started to fall. Fat raindrops, loud raindrops, many raindrops falling onto our aluminum roof. Percussion for my amphibian a-capella choir.

It's funny how I can convince myself that the city is quiet. You don't get that freaky scary quiet in the city. At the very least, there's the hum of electricity flowing past you at all hours. And you know, I can deal with that. After a while, the noise fades into the background, becomes the soundtrack of my nocturnal lifestyle and my eventual attempts at sleep.

But it's harder to deal with the lack of frogs.

:: Katy 2:08 a.m. [+] :: ::