Toad Sleeps Through Christmas

I have recently been enjoying an online writing course, created by Beth Kempton, called Winter Writing Sanctuary. Technically the course finished early in December, but fortunately, you can complete it at your own pace — which works well for me. One prompt invited us to change our perspective and imagine winter from the perspective of another animal. I was inspired to write about a toad by the toad we saw just outside our apartment in the summer. This is not high literature…but I thought it might bring a smile to some faces on this slightly sad and lonely Christmas. And I hope you have a tasty treat to enjoy this winter.

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Toad was hungry. She had already eaten a breakfast of oatmeal, toast, and two slices of berry pie, but her tummy was grumbling. It said : winter is coming.

Toad went out to look for some lunch. The forest was chilly, and the sky was grey. “Not long ’til winter,” she thought.

A great orange pumpkin loomed ahead. Toad stopped to eat a piece. “That’ll do the trick,” she thought. But her tummy grumbled : winter is coming.

Toad smelled a delicious smell. Following her nose, she hopped to the tree of her friend Robin. “Hello down there!” called Robin from his nest. “I’m just taking my worm casserole from the oven. Would you like some?” “Oh yes, please,” said Toad. So Robin flew down with two plates piled high with worm casserole, and a red-and-white checkered tablecloth. He spread it on a toadstool and they shared a delicious lunch. While they ate, Robin told Toad all about the Christmas party that he was planning. Toad was captivated by his description of the sugar cookies he would make, cut into stars and trees and hearts and lined with white icing. “Of course you are invited,” said Robin. But they both knew Toad couldn’t come. She had to hibernate each winter, and would miss the fun.

“Well, Merry Christmas, Robin,” said Toad, feeling a chill in the air. “I should be getting home — winter is coming.”

She was nearly home to the muddy bank when a huge rumbling shook the earth. Hiding under a leaf, Toad watched as two people came up the path. The first was a small child (who of course looked enormous to Toad). She trembled as she watched the yellow rubber boots tromp up : splat, splat, splat! The boots stopped right in front of Toad’s leaf. CRUNCH, CRUNCH. The huge sound came from above. “I wonder what this child is eating,” thought Toad. Her tummy gave another rumble. She curled up smaller under the leaf and hoped the rumbling wouldn’t give her away.

CRASH. Something enormous fell from above, just inches from Toad’s leaf. “Mama, let’s go home and decorate the tree!” called the child. The boots ran away, followed by a pair of larger ones.

Trembling, Toad crept out from under her leaf. Lying on a patch of moss was an enormous star, yellow but light brown underneath, with a white line all around the edge — a sugar cookie, just like Robin had told her about! Toad grasped it in her long fingers and pulled it under an evergreen bush. As she ate the cookie, point by point, a light snow began to fall. “Winter is here,” thought Toad. Her tummy did not grumble anymore. Licking the last crumbs from her lips, she burrowed into the mud to wait for spring.

homecoming (my time of year)

My time is the cold months, and they are arriving. Last night we slept with the windows open to feel the cool night air, and I wore flannel dark-blue-with-stars pajama pants and pulled the quilt right up to my chin. Fall is here, and winter is coming.

I have never been a summer person. My dad often reminded me to “never wish your life away,” and I’ve learned to love the summer. It was one thing to learn to love the Northern California summer when we would visit our family there — that love came naturally, love for the brown hills and the smells of eucalyptus in Tilden, love for hearing my parents’ stories of growing up, love for a coast where you wore your jeans and a sweatshirt to sit on the beach. Love for New York summers has taken a bit more coaxing, but it has come, too : getting up at dawn in July to feel the temporary dip in temperature, when the regular day’s heat is still somehow present and bumping against you in big balloons that will soon burst. The lush, overgrown Eastern woods. Tuning out the impossibly loud buzz of cicadas until your ear suddenly, shockingly notices it, again and again. Reading on the front porch while the dog sits in the yard and patiently watches the quiet street. Yes, I have found my love of summer.

Nevertheless, my time is a cold time. I was born in November, and my heart seems to have stayed there. November : the darkening, in-between month before the winter blows fully in. Dustings of snow on gray-brown leaves. Morning darkness, which is a different darkness than evening. The memories that return each year : helping my mother prepare dinner one evening during a fall evening rainstorm while we sang along to Norah Jones. Venturing out with my father and brother after the blizzard of 1996 to see the magical world outside our apartment, where snowdrifts were taller than I was — taller even than Daddy was. Thanksgiving with friends in Oregon during college, playing boardgames until we laughed ourselves silly and eating double helpings of pumpkin cheesecake. David, getting down on one knee before me two late-Octobers ago, me in my dad’s old wool sweater and boots and David with tears in his eyes. (And I don’t remember a single thing he said, although I think it had to do with marriage and I know I said yes.)

Every year from November first until spring, I allow myself to listen to the Rachmaninov Vespers again (and again, and again). (If I didn’t limit my listening, I worry I’d ruin them for myself.) After singing Bogoroditse Djevo in my college choir, I fell in love with the entire work. There is truly nothing like lying on your back, alone in a dark room, half-watching the rain, snow, or wind-blown leaves outside the window, while listening to the Vespers. I listen to at least part of them almost every day for those months. I live in them. They are my soundtrack and they connect me wherever I am to the places and times I have lived. The Vespers are fall and winter to me.

And fall and winter are safety, adventure, and stories. They are my childhood and my point of origin. They are cooking in a kitchen that is made more pleasant (not less) by the extra heat of the stove. They are friendship and peace after the frenzied energies of summer. And it is good to be home.