when there is no flow

Yesterday Eva and I spent a good bit of time searching around for the green-plastic-frog-who-has-his-mouth-wide-open. I had a story all written out in my mind as we searched around and now as I sit down to write it out, the whole thing seems flat. Rather than not writing about it, I decided to try writing it out flat and see what happens. See what kind of flow I can get into when there doesn't seem to be a flow, if that makes sense.

What I marvel at right now, rather than the process of searching for the frog- or even the story behind the frog- Italics- this is the same green-plastic-frog-who-has-his-mouth-wide-open that I found a few days ago in the space behind the vegetable garden while I was pulling up unwanted plants who had been missing since at least last October, but that forgotten kind of missing, like if he never showed up again no one would remember he was missing in the first place but when he did show up everyone was excited and exclaimed things like, "I remember that frog! Let me see him!"- End Italics- is the number of other frogs that I did find-

There was the stretchy frog with the missing leg which I had super glued back on at least three times but which never seemed to stick. There was the cloth frog stuffed with sand who has a small hole on the top of his head. Sand has been slowly trickling out for years. There was the green bathtub frog and the other green bathtub frog, one a harder plastic that came in a set of other hard plastic bathtub animals and one that was more of a squirty green plastic, softer, also from a set, but a different, smaller set. And another green bathtub frog who sits like a person, not a frog. And four other frogs who are like rain forest frogs, all different colors, who did not come in a set but who could, I think, come in a set from somewhere like OMSI or some other science-y type place. And of course the first green plastic frog I had found earlier that day who I thought at first was The Green Plastic Frog but who definitely was not. Eva confirmed this immediately, even before she saw him. The one we were looking for had never been in the bathtub and this one was still there. He was in the soap dish. Plus his mouth was closed.

We still have not found the green plastic frog but I fall flat again each time I think of this part of the story. So how about this- I put the four rain forest frogs in another soap dish hanging from the bathtub wall but lower down and after many tears and much searching, Eva went in and discovered these frogs and took them outside to play. They are still outside, sitting in the mud, just where a frog likes to be. Actually I am thinking about going to check on them after I post this..

Still no sign of the green plastic frog, as I said, but I am determined he will show up. So many years of toys showing up in unlikely places has fostered a sort of toy optimism in me. Mostly. Except when it doesn't and I am petrified that a certain toy will be lost somewhere unthinkable, but this mainly happens over the highly coveted toys like Sliver and Titan or Chicky or Bear or Gilbert or now things like The DS. Generally, toys like the green-plastic-frog-who-has-his-mouth-wide-open show up and when they do someone is usually there to celebrate and remember and play. OK. Pretty good. Not bad for no flow.