The Tale of the Frog Who Refused to Leap
Found between pressed herbs and a lavender sachet, dated only: Early Spring
I once heard a story — or perhaps I dreamt it — of a little frog who lived beside a stream that sang like silver.
He was not a particularly brave frog. Nor clever. He did not leap high or far. In fact, he rarely left the mossy stone he called home. The others would laugh, bounding across lily pads, calling to each other from reeds and rocks. But he stayed put, watching the water with eyes the color of new leaves.
One day, a heron landed beside him — tall and elegant, the kind of creature who never stayed long in one place.
“Why do you not leap?” the heron asked.
The frog blinked. “Because I am not certain where I would land.”
The heron laughed the way creatures do when they have never once questioned the shape of their wings. “How terribly dull,” she said, and off she flew.
Spring turned to summer. Summer to something quieter. Still the frog did not leap.
But he listened. He listened to the current, to the wind rustling through tall grass, to the slow soft songs the dusk carries when no one’s paying attention. And in his stillness, he came to know things the leaping frogs never did — how the moonlight touches the stones, how dragonflies speak when they think no one hears, how beauty moves slowest just before the rain.
He was not the loudest. Nor the farthest traveled. But he was the keeper of quiet. The witness. The one who stayed.
And in the end, he leapt only once — and exactly when it mattered.
I have always liked that story.
Even now, when I find myself tempted to leap before I’m ready, I think of the frog on the stone.
Some of us were not made for constant motion.
Some of us are meant to stay.
To listen.
To know.
And when the moment comes, we leap without fear — not because we were told to, but because we chose it.
