a wild dragon appears

My ex Couchsurfer Mike from USA was a mad reptile/bug enthusiast. Like me only more. He could spend hours watching and waiting for the perfect spotting of whatever the jungle would provide. When he stayed at my house there was a particular Lophognathus temporalis, a Northern Water Dragon that used to run the exact same loop at the exact same time for every morning. Mike pointed him out to me and sometimes we would just sit there watching the lizard on its route. He was so predictable. When Mike left me I saw the little fella sporadically. He was becoming part of the furniture now so I didn’t sit there and watch him like I used to. And the times were inconvenient to my schedule. But when I caught him occasionally just chillin on his favourite palm tree I smiled always remembering my past surfer and the shared moments on the balcony. The little dragon was growing bigger and bigger.

The tree got cut down a month ago. I didn’t really think about it. My life has grown so chaotic that I kind of forgot about that little dragon and the times when we used to just sit there and watch the life in my garden move around us. I forgot about the entire ecosystem that exists under my feet. The unseen. For the first time in ages I was awake on a Sunday morning at 6:30am. Not only was I awake I was active and productive. I was walking around downstairs when I saw him. He was sitting on the trunk of the sawn off tree just waiting. He is huge now. Fully grown and despite his favourite palm tree being cut down he found it and still he sits there as he makes his predictable loop through my garden.

And life goes on around me. It never stopped, I just stopped watching. Sometimes you need to slow down and breathe the air, smell the flowers, listen to the birds and open your eyes. It’s a pretty incredible world out there don’t miss out on it.