Life: The Fragility and Heartbreak Of It

Ever had an encounter with a tangible reminder of life- the fragility and heartbreak if it? I am not talking about the pain of deaths, losses, failures and disappointments each of us must suffer, I mean a tidal wave of awe, joy, beauty, indescribable that flattens you…engulfs you within it, shocking and paralyzing.

In the 12 years we have lived in the high desert, I have seen hundreds, maybe thousands of lizards. But never, until yesterday morning have I seen a baby lizard. Not once.

It was Labor Day morning and I planned to give myself the day off; we were entertaining friends we’d not seen for a while and I needed to go to the store to get the ingredients for the dinner; for us, going to the store entails a 3 hour round trip. But I had plenty of time, not stressed and decided to do a lengthy work-out to mitigate the damage I’d do later that evening.

As I donned my headphones, selected the music I wanted to work out to, I saw a baby lizard on the floor of the garage. Less than an inch, perfect and impossibly tiny. Courageously making his way across the garage floor where he would most certainly be stepped on by me or the dog or my husband or driven over when we backed out one of the cars.

By now, Il Divo were belting out Tonight into my headphones and I stared nonplussed at this tiny being; finally deciding that I had to intervene so I gently pursued him in the direction of the open garage door. Instead, he disappeared into the detritus in the corner where the spiders hide…but then seconds later, he re-appeared on the wooden door jam, aiming to climb.

Intervening once again, I grabbed some dry sagebrush to prod him and he finally dropped on the cement walk and on under the gas grill where he stayed.

Was he safer out there?

Should I have just left him alone in the garage?

How can something that small survive?

The beauty of the music–if you like splendid voice then you will enjoy this group, Il Divo, the perfection of that baby lizard in such an inconceivable size combined for a moment in awe and the strange coupling of joy and sorrow in an intensity that you know is supernatural. Life: the fragility and heartbreak of it.