A Change Of Seasons

I should be getting into my jogging clothes and stretching, preparing for a walk around the village. On the table, exactly where I left it yesterday, is my Walkman, and the Deepak Chopra tape on the Higher Self. Just last week, as a result of what my stepfather called "closeting," I found my self-help audio tapes and decided to listen while I walked. Maybe I could improve myself. So far I have learned that Deepak Chopra lisps, which in some way interferes with whatever wonderful thing he has to say about the higher self. But I have been lagging behind my deadlines so no walk today. My column is due in a few hours.

It is not quite 5:30 a.m. Yes, I rise at the crack of dawn because in the summer, it is too hot to walk after 7 a.m. Your brains fry and you are useless all day. Yesterday I walked and in 10 minutes was drenched by a fairly strong shower, so I had to head home. Today, I’m behind my deadline and my exercise regime.

My companion and co-witch Anna and I have been arguing again, this time about the weather. She says the rainy season has begun and I say that weather patterns have changed. Now the rainy season doesn’t begin until late July or August. What we’re facing is the beginning of a transition season, from dry to wet, something like spring, a period of hot, muggy oppressive days when Nature can’t decide whether she will rain or not. The wind rises between us and knocks down potted plants in the pond. She looks up as if she can see the wind. "This is habagat (I think the west wind). It used to be amihan (the opposite wind)," Anna sniffs, ignoring me, asserting that she is the better weather witch. She knows the winds’ names. She knows their smells.

I should have seen this coming when I came in from my walk last week to find Mang Pedro under the isis tree near a hyperactive crumpled white opaque plastic bag tied to a low branch. Was it moving or was that just the habagat? "Frogs," Anna said pointing at the rustling bag. "Mang Pedro’s pulutan."

"But those are poisonous frogs," I protested. I know. I’m from Laguna. My grandmother raised me as a frog-eater so I know what edible frogs look like.

"They know how to dress them and make them edible," she explained. At that precise point one big ugly frog crossed the pond in front of me. "There’s another one," I said. "Pedro, get into the pond and catch all you can eat."

Pedro grinned, unzipped his pants to reveal very decent under puruntongs waded into my pond, which is less than two feet deep. He stuck his hands under rocks and came up with big fat ugly frogs. It reminded me of a Penelope Lively novel I once read where she described a snake exterminator who would come to their home in Egypt and with a forked stick would just "harvest" snakes from all over the house, including closets.

That night, probably in protest, the frogs made that noise that keeps me awake, a loud annoying engine sound, like a night train passing, trying desperately to break through the lonely darkness. "That’s just frogs’ mating," my contractor once explained, amused by the disgust on my face.

On Mother’s Day, while waiting for my children to visit, I fed the fish and was horrified to find the pond teeming with bullfrogs. I use that label loosely, not scientifically. I don’t know the difference between a bullfrog and a toad. They are both ugly. Anna’s habagat had knocked over reeds and among those toppled blades frogs were stacked one on top of the other, unmoving. Every once in a while the frog below would make that engine sound, apparently a moan of pleasure. "Unmount!" I commanded from my bridge, throwing bread pellets and pebbles at the stacked frogs. "You can’t do that here. Bawal. Verboten. Only Anna and I can do that here. This is not a motel. You have to pay us. Get off. Get off." But, of course, they would not. Even frogs know when they’re on to a good thing.

The next day I organized a group of frogmen. Anna had shown me disgusting strings of eggs floating in the pond. These would hatch into millions of tadpoles that then would become frogs. These frogs waste no time. They mate, lay eggs and hatch them almost in the same breath. Thankfully, frogs are not Catholic. My pond is no one’s diocese except mine and I know how to keep these populations in check. The frogmen went about their duties, one scooping up eggs into a pail that then was left in the sun to dry and die, another scooping up frogs for someone’s feast. Within the day the pond looked normal again though I’m sure a few more frogs lurk under the rocks. We’ll get them eventually.

I concede: Anna is the better witch. The rainy season – love weather for frogs – has formally begun. Since I’ve lived in the country close to nature I have come to know first hand that there are more seasons than wet and dry. I think the people who wrote our geography books were as unimaginative as those who wrote our history books. Then again, what do we really expect? The first historians and geographers here were sailors who took notes, not scientists. There’s mating season for all including humans and then birthing season for all including plants when they unfurl that first leaf. Each season brings change, renewal, rebirth. Even people are reborn according to the seasons of their lives.

If you had told me when I was presiding over board meetings that I would one day preside over the execution of frogs I would have ordered your execution behind your back because that would hurt more. Maybe I am becoming a gentler, kinder person. It must be by Higher Thelf, awakened by the lisping Deepak Chopra, on these early morning walks.