On becoming a salamander...

I set a goal for myself each year.
Not really a “resolution”—as I understand the annual promises we make to ourselves to involve changes in our behavior—things to which we can consciously direct our minds, and realistically hope to accomplish with sustained effort. Promises whose success or failure rest with ourselves alone.

My goals represent the dreams I’d like to realize.
Many times, larger than I.
And often, beyond my control.
Still, I dream.

This year-- to witness the migration of the spotted salamanders to a vernal pool.
To be there, watching, on the one night that nature summons them from their underground burrows to walk the ancestral trail.
And to see, at last, what I’ve only read about in books.

I studied. And read.
And studied some more.
Until my human mind understood salamanders.
Until I, too, could hear nature calling on that dark rainy night, to walk.
Like the spotted ones.