Seven Miles, a Blurry Photo & Something About Hope

The past week was an unusually busy one, and while I always make sure Ginty and I get out for at least a short walk, it had been six days since we'd had a real trail walk. We finally made it out this morning - a little over seven miles in four and a half hours. It was wonderful.

At one point I spotted a tiny toad and tried to get a photo. The results were less than satisfactory.

In case you can’t tell, that’s a tiny Western Toad and my hand.

I've found a few tiny toads along the trails lately. They are incredibly cute and I have stopped every time to try to photograph them, which is no easy feat, all they really want to do is hop away. I've resorted to using one hand to corral them while the other tries to snap a photo. It has not gone particularly well, and I even made a short video about the whole process.

But the tiny toads have been reminding me of something that happened when I was a small child. I don't remember all the details, but we were out in nature, possibly camping, which happened often; exploring the natural world has been a way of life for me since I was very young. At any rate, I managed to catch a tiny tree frog and was thrilled. I vaguely remember there being a whole lot of them, enough for a small child to actually catch one. I cupped it between my hands, and it was wiggly, so I held on tight to make sure it didn't escape.

It never escaped. Poor thing.

I was horrified. My hands were small, I was inexperienced, and I simply held on too tightly. Now, every time I encounter a tiny frog or toad on the trail, that whole incident comes back to me. As much as I love the little creatures, I know that trying to hold one too tightly is to invite disaster.

Thinking about that lately, I've been considering that there are other things in life we can lose if we grip them too hard. And for some reason, hope is the one that keeps coming to me.

Hope is something we all need desperately, especially in times when so much feels so hard. But if we try too hard to grasp it, to hold it down and pin it in place, it just isn't there anymore. I think hope has to be held loosely, with open hands, ready to receive.

Holding on to hope is a little like trying to photograph tiny toads. There's joy and excitement in the sighting. We feel lucky to get even a slightly blurry image, a small reminder of the magic of the moment. There is hope in the expectation of tiny miracles. There is hope in breathing deep and finding just enough strength to go a little further.

Curious about my other attempts to photograph the tiny toads? Watch that video here.