It’s a frog’s life in the shadow of the lawnmower

I was mowing the grass when I came across a frog. He was lucky, because he hopped away before the machine had a chance to slice him in bits. And he looked so completely terrified that I stopped and apologised for disturbing his day. I suppose for some frogs life is just an ongoing escape from disaster, but they don’t usually look terrified. They look calm. And when they are frightened, they seem comical, like clowns with bulging eyes and palpitating chests.

“I’m very sorry about that, Mr Frog,” I said. “I didn’t see you in the grass.”

I was standing under the ash tree at the time. I usually blame magpies for stripping the berries from the tree, but it was thrushes I noticed overhead, darkening the sky and devouring the berries like schoolboys eating sausages around a deli counter at lunch break. And when they were finished, starlings arrived, like flying rats, squealing across the sky in squadrons, alighting on the fence and then up to the tree to finish it off. The whole garden was like a war zone.

It was the feeding frenzy that reminded me about the lunch I needed to prepare for the following day. I made four cheese- and-ham sandwiches, wrapped them in tinfoil and put them in the fridge. Early the next morning I took the Miner’s Way across the hills, a meandering path that the miners used long ago when they were coming and going from work in pits at the top of the mountain.

Home-made lanterns

I remember a retired miner telling me one time that they had home-made lanterns for going over the hills to the mines on winter nights. A candle was stuck into a half potato and the potato placed at the bottom of a jam jar. Then a lid with perforated holes was twisted tight and so each miner could walk in the wind with his lantern lighting the way. And as well as lanterns, the miners attached bells to wooden posts along the route so that when the pathways were covered with snow they could hear the bells and knew which direction to walk.

Even before the sun had edged over the mountain, I was sitting at the top, munching the sandwiches and trying to squeeze myself into the present moment, like a frog in the grass.

Depressive emotions

I’m a melancholic individual, so I’m constantly afflicted by depressive emotions. Frogs, on the other hand, are more committed to the present moment. They’re not distracted by national independence, the bombs in Syria or the air over Gaza when it’s thick with American aircraft.

At least I think the planes are made in the United States, but I could be wrong. I was wrong about the magpies. And I’ve been wrong about most things in life. But I didn’t want to be flooding with depressive ideas at the top of a mountain, so I focused on the frog from the previous day and how serene the little fellow looked as he sat in the grass.

It’s not that I want to be a frog. Life can be dangerous enough, without lawnmowers to the left and the cat’s paw to the right, but frogs always remind me of old Asian masters of Zen.

By the time I came down from the mountain I was ready for a snooze, and I was tempted to turn on Raidió na Gaeltachta to listen to Michelle Nic Grianna’s sweet voice broadcasting from Donegal.

Not that I understand everything Michelle says, but in her native Irish vowels I can hear the soft waves falling on the strand at Magheraroarty.

I usually keep the volume low so that her presence remains at a pleasant distance, and as soothing as a bean-a-tí in my faraway childhood.

But I was still very melancholic, even after the walk, so I looked on You Tube and found a two-hour clip of Thich Nhat Hanh talking about bliss.

And if it’s bliss you want, then Thich Nhat Hanh is the boy who can melt the stones in any heart. His voice penetrates the psyche with the determination of a dentist whispering: “This won’t hurt.”

“You are only one step away from happiness,” I could hear him whisper. “Bliss is like a flower. Just reach out and touch it.”

But no matter how beautifully he spoke, I could neither touch flowers nor find peace.

I was paralysed again by sadness, or maybe my mind was still too polluted with lawnmowers, magpies, and the ever- enduring prospect of bombs in Syria and aircraft over Gaza.