For many years, my Mom and Dad lived in the apartment connected to my last home.
Their apartment was significantly larger than my section of the house, both sides having three bedrooms, but my parents dwelled on one level, outside the nifty loft over their great room.
One-level living is not to be overlooked as greater than most other options, in my opinion.
My S.O. and I have considered penning a book on multi-generational living, as we also, for ten wonderful years, shared our side of the home with her Mama.
One would think that doesn’t work anymore, the way society is wired, but it did.
My son grew up with the gift of being able to see most of his grandparents within a short walking distance, usually ending up hanging out with his grandfather on his side of the house on nights that the Celtics were playing. Sometimes I could hear them cheering from my side of the house.
I digress
Now, it wasn’t quite as sublime as the Waltons made it feel, but it worked. As Olivia Walton once said, or maybe it was the grandmother, “A house built with love has elastic walls.”
I don’t know why I recall that line, but I do.
One of the many interesting things that seemed problematic when it happened, but now is something I miss with some misty-eyed rearward glances, was a parking spot that was directly adjacent to my Dad’s small bedroom—his window in front of where I parked my truck.
In those days, I was the on-call detective for a week a month, also being secondary call for the other three weeks, thus putting me in and out of that driveway, with my headlights shining in his window, at all hours, multiple times a month.
He never complained. You see, my Dad would always keep the window open beside his bed, just a crack. That gave us many opportunities to discuss who got stabbed, or what convenience store was burglarized; you get the idea.
They were short chats, held in total darkness, me typically apologizing for waking him, or keeping him up with the noise of me leaving or returning. I did have the foresight to turn off my lights when pulling up near the window, but he said it never bothered him a bit.
My Dad was easy to get along with. Something you only realize—later— when you observe other people in contentious relationships with their parents. I have to also say, it was because of his personality, not mine, that we got on so well. He was that kind of man.
I digress.
Dad reveled in keeping his window open a crack, opening it wider if it was windy; I do the same thing. There’s something comforting about the sound and, of course, the feel of a breeze on your skin.
In the winter, when heating the house, I’d scold him a little bit. He’d say, “I only open it a crack, but I like it.” That was good enough to get me to shut up and consider all the times I’d left the door open to our family homes when he was paying for the heat.
Last night, as a weather front moved into Maine, the wind picked up. I opened the sliding back door to watch the curtains dance as the breeze rustled the leaves of the hardwoods just beyond the grass. I turned out all the lights and lay my head back in the recliner, in the dark, just taking in the wind.
It was then that repeated taps came from the other side of the adjacent glass slider. At first, I thought it might be leaves bouncing off, but it was more of a thump than a scrape or the light tickle of a floating leaf.
Even Ellie, lying beside my chair, lifted her head, as it simply wasn’t a common creak or moan of our place on the hill.
Without turning on the light, I crept to the glass and flicked on a flashlight I keep handy by the door to look for skunks or porcupines before I release my hound. Also, being aware that turning on an inside lamp would backlight me enough that whatever beast was trying to get into the house could see that I was defenseless at this very moment.
I shone the light around the back dooryard, seeing nothing. That is, until I looked down to find the fellow who is featured in today’s photo.
Apparently, he’d been trying to get an insect from the glass, giving it four or five(college-level) tree frog tries.
Of course, I talked to him or her, as conversation through open windows is one of my favorite things.
“Hey, pal, you make a lot of noise for such a small frog,” I said.
The frog said nothing. The cat eating the canary comes to mind, except that this is a frog.
“Nothing to see here, I don’t know where that bug went!” would be an appropriate thought bubble hovering over the creature.
If you look closely enough in the attached photo, you can see that he/she is holding tightly to whatever meal was derived from the back door. The snack is still tightly clamped within the frog’s jaw. The extra-long antennae hanging out tell the whole story.
Now, before someone determines that it’s my Dad revisiting me on a windy night—I do not believe that. I know exactly where my Dad is right now, but since the Red Sox were not playing, and the Celtics’ season hasn’t kicked in, he did have some time on his hands. It’s highly possible that he was enjoying the breezy night just like I was.
I left the frog to finish up, not knowing if my light was causing his pupils to dilate, but concerned that it wasn’t comfortable in the least to be watched this closely, at least at mealtime.
No, I didn’t look up whether the eyes of reptiles dilate, but I believe they do. And, I also surmised, since this is the Internet, that some of you would look it up and correct me if I was wrong.
I went back to my chair, finally dozing off with the pleasant wind and thoughts of the days past when I didn’t even consider how much could change in a couple of years.
But then, I thought, what a great night it was for that frog.
From the Jagged Edge of America, I remain,
TC