Learning From Lizards

Almost every time I have stepped outside this spring, I have been greeted by a lizard – clinging to the doorbell on the concrete stoop at the back door, leaping American Ninja-style from chair to chair on the sun-drenched deck, darting back and forth beneath moving rockers on the shaded front porch.  I have hardly been able enter or leave without encountering the neon green, hyperactive reptile and I have had to maintain constant surveillance lest one land on the book in my lap.

I will note that I am aware that “lizard” is a generic term for a large and diverse group of reptiles, including snakes, belonging to the order Squamata, and not the proper name for the creature whose acrobatic feats could easily earn him a spot with USA Gymnastics.  If I had been taught to call him a green anole (his correct name) when I was four and chasing him across my grannie’s front porch, then I would call him a green anole.  (I was not and, so, he is a lizard, just like the plastic tube through which water is conducted in the yard is a hosepipe and not a garden hose.)

The Audubon guide describes him as slender with a long, wedge-shaped snout.  It is noted that his toes are padded, his tail long and thin.  The pink pouch that hangs down between the male’s head and chest is called a throat fan and is engaged for the purpose of marking his territory.  He is the only anole species native to the United States.  Finally, it is important to note that the little fellow is not a chameleon, even though his color changes in response to light, temperature, and emotions.  (Who knew that a lizard has emotions?)

With that information in hand, I figured that I knew about as much about the lizard as I needed to know.

About a week ago, though, I was sitting in my reading chair – large and overstuffed, tucked into the corner between one of the bedroom windows and the French doors that lead to the deck – when I changed my mind.  My journal was open and I had been musing for some reason about a stopwatch.  “Stopwatch,” I had written.  “Stop watching.  Stop looking, observing, concentrating on, focusing on what a watch represents.”  A gentle reminder, I supposed, to slow down.

With the pen still in my hand, I heard a loud splat and looked up to see that a lizard had thrown himself against the glass in the door.  Splayed out like a crime scene silhouette, he could have been a lizard-shaped suction cup.  

I ignored my own words and watched.  Sat very still and held my breath.  He stayed for no more than a few seconds, but long enough for me to be astonished that his head was a disproportionately large percentage of his seven-inch self, to be amazed that his belly was the color of a gardenia petal, to be surprised that there was no sign of his throat fan.

Then, just as quickly as he had plopped onto the glass, he flung himself backwards  like a scene out of “The Matrix,” padded toes cushioning his landing before he disappeared.  I may have gasped.  I know I sighed.

I don’t generally revisit what I write in my journal.  The words are not meant for posterity or recollection.  They are meant only as a conduit, a means to turn wordless things into words, into spendable currency.  This time, though, I looked down at the black lines curling and crossing each other to see that they had twisted themselves into something different.  

Instead of “stop watching,” the vision of the stopwatch was telling me – as an order, not a suggestion –  to “stop AND watch, stop TO watch.”  Consistent with every mysterious encounter I have ever had with Nature, this one was gently reminding me that all I will ever need to know (about the lizard or anything else) can be learned, will be learned by watching, by focusing on that which is right in front of me.  Even when it means I have to look away from something else.

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