A few nights ago, on a warm, quiet evening, I sat on an old wooden veranda overlooking a peaceful, beautiful and soothing garden. The floorboards cracked slightly whenever someone shuffled behind me, a gentle smell of incense was penetrating the air. I could hear the guzzling of a small water fountain, and I knew that there were dozens of fish swimming in the pond. If I stretched out my hand, I could touch the wooden banister. The wood was old, unpainted, polished by decades of use and weather, so worn out, I could trace the annual rings of the tree which it once was.
I sat there with my eyes closed, and I listened. It almost felt like being transported back in time, to a small intersection where a stony, unpaved road branched off an asphalt track to climb a steep hill. On one corner, there was a fence and a house, and on the other, there was a shallow pond, the size of which changed just as the seasons changed. In that pond, frogs changed and sang their songs every summer evening.
It's only been a few nights since I sat on the wooden veranda inhaling the incense-filled air, and since the frogs chanted and sang, chanted and sang, like they did in that old pond so many summers ago.
Some day I will again sit somewhere and listen. And when I will think back, will it be the 6-year-old, or the 26-year-old that I will think of? Or will it be the frogs?
