Frogtopolis
On desire, sleep deprivation, and the frogs my husband invited into our bedroom
It used to be Brent’s snoring that kept me up. In some ways, snoring is the more manageable affliction. I can nudge him — a firm elbow to the ribs, a whispered hey — and most of the time the snoring stops. At least for a little while. At least until I’ve drifted back toward sleep and it starts again, soft at first, then building like a freight train finding its rhythm.
The frogs offer no such remedy.
They arrived sometime in April, drawn to the pond Brent built in the far corner of our backyard — a two-pool oasis of black lava rock and still water, the surface scattered with duckweed, the whole thing framed by a fullness of bamboo that creates what I can only describe as a series of very romantic nooks. He built it with care over a long summer weekend two years ago, hauling rock and running tubing, filling it with water from the hose until it held. He was proud of it. I was proud of him.
I did not anticipate the frogs. He planned for them. He built this oasis for them and gathered tadpoles from languishing ponds in public parks to populate the community he was nurturing at home—a lush water garden tucked away in our dry high desert climate.
Now it is 3 a.m. and I am wide awake as if I have a flight to catch, which I do not. What I have instead is a pillow over my head, Brent’s arm thrown across me, and the relentless, full-throated, deeply resonant croaking of what I can only assume is the entire male frog population assembled in my backyard for one singular purpose. The brown noise app I’ve pulled up on my phone is doing nothing. The fan is clicking. The bathroom window is stuck open an inch— just wide enough to admit this summer’s wildfire smoke or, as it turns out, the sonic force field of an amphibian dating event.
I pull up Google because it is 3 a.m. and there is nothing else to do.
It seems the male tree frog finds a location suitable for breeding — and takes up residence. Once settled, the assembled males sing. They sing loudly and without self-consciousness or apparent concern for the sleeping humans thirty feet away. The females, apparently, will arrive when they arrive. The males need only commit to the calling. Based on the reverberation coming through my stuck window, these particular frogs are very committed.
The average suburban tree frog does not mate for life. There is a species that does, but ours are not those frogs. Our backyard is, to be precise, a nighttime hookup spot for amphibians. What he has created, in the end, is Frogtopolis — a thriving community of creatures calling openly into the dark for exactly what they want.
I lie on my back and think about desire that announces itself without apology.
There is a version of frog song I have always loved. Backpacking in the Strawberry Wilderness, camping lakeside in Estes Park with Jen and Rob, when we were supposed to be writing papers and went anyway instead — those places the frogs at night felt like confirmation. Like we had found our way to somewhere we were always meant to be. The sound was elemental and right, woven into the dark alongside the smell of pine and woodsmoke and cold water.
The frogs outside my bedroom window at 3 a.m. are the same frogs. The same species, the same song, the same ancient and uncomplicated agenda. What’s changed is not them.
What’s different is that I am 50, lying next to the man who built the pond they’re singing from, listening to their open and unironic invitation — come find me, I am here — and feeling, in some way I am still trying to articulate, implicated by it. Not envious, exactly. Something more like recognition. The frogs are not complicated about what they want. They have found the place, they have begun the song, and they are waiting without ambivalence for what comes next.
Brent stirs beside me. In his sleep he reaches over and finds my hand.
The pond he built. How he didn’t know what it would become, but was hopeful and undeterred in creating something beautiful and hospitable and full of water. In response, the world filled it with life. That’s the thing about building something — you don’t always get to choose what arrives.
You just keep the water clean. You let the bamboo grow. You lie awake at 3 a.m. listening to the life that showed up.
By 4:30 the frogs have quieted. Either the females have arrived and everyone has gotten what they came for, or the males have finally given up for the night and gone back to waiting. I’m not sure which possibility is more romantic and which is more sad.
I close my eyes. Brent’s hand is still in mine. Outside, Frogtopolis rests in the silver pre-dawn, the duckweed floating, the lava rock wet, the bamboo perfectly still.
The window is still stuck open an inch.
I really need to get that fixed.
The Now Years publishes every week. If this resonates, share it with a woman in your life who is ready to start living on her own terms. Don’t keep it to yourself.