he was waiting on the trail for us. the eastern tiger salamander, poised, ready. we’ve never seen one – in all our hiking. so this was extraordinary and this little guy was trusting as we picked him up and moved him to the brush on the side of the trail, an effort to keep him from being hurt by fat-tire bikers passing by.

it’s the 300th week of our melange. we’ve been up and running these blogs-with-images for 300 weeks straight, sans interruption. some of that period of time it was five days a week; since may 2021, with the addition of our smack-dab cartoon, it has been six days a week. there is an imperative for us; writing begets more writing.

we sort the stories of our lives – threading back – and find clues and reasons and validations. we sort the stories of our lives – in the here and now – and find questions and individual moments – specific themes and thoughts. we sort the stories of our lives – moving forward – and see the utterly undeniable need to be present, to notice beauty, to go slow, to appreciate.

silly stories, divulging stories, grief stories, stories of wistful, ordinary stories, stories of pensive thought or roiled-up rant, stories of the essence of gossamer threads, we share with you – our dear readers – our lives. it is – truly – the yada yada yada of life.

we came upon him on a sunny and clear day, in a bit of shade on the trail. though a nocturnal creature and usually in an underground burrow or under a log in the daytime, this salamander was just there, waiting for us. as is our way, we talked to him for a bit. he didn’t answer any of our questions about why he was there, if he was ok, where he was headed. he didn’t seem to be moved by our telling him it was the first time we had ever – in all our time hiking in the area – seen an amphibian such as him. nor did he seem to care that we thought he was “a cute little guy”.

it might have been just too many spoken words – or he may already read our daily blogs – because as we carefully picked him up and moved him, hoping to save him from harm, he eyed us and squeaked out, “nada yada yada.”

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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