are grasshoppers real?

Last night I read the Richard Scarry book “I Am A Bunny” to Jack and Evan. The book tells a story about all of the different things a bunny does throughout the year. On the back cover there’s a drawing of the bunny sitting in a field looking at random bugs – a mantis, a walking stick, a ladybug, and a grasshopper.

I stared at the book for a while. I couldn’t stop thinking about the grasshopper. That was a bug I used to see all the time in childhood, but I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d actually seen one in person. I used to catch them and carry them around. I loved the deep green ones but those giant brown grasshoppers were fun to find as well. What happened to the grasshoppers?

Are grasshoppers even REAL?

Fast forward to this morning. I normally go for a walk before work every day at this park near my office to beat the heat and get my steps. Today I started my usual route and eventually found myself walking in this big open field completely alone. There was no one around, which was unusual, so I turned off my music and immediately noticed the sound of nothingness around me aside from faint car sounds and birds chirping.

Like the elusive grasshopper, I can’t remember the last time I experienced relative silence like that. That’s part of the gig when you’ve got kids, friends, family, or whatever. We fill our time with things to do, and that’s fine and good, but an occasional silence break is refreshing. I noticed trees around me that I’d never seen before. I stepped off the path and walked in the grass, and then it hit me. Grasshoppers! Maybe I could find one?

So I walked around in this big open area in silence staring at the ground. I knew there had to be one around…but even though I looked for a good 10 minutes, unfortunately finding a grasshopper was not in the cards for me today. I was a little disappointed, but I had to get to work. I started the walk back toward my car. The closer I got, the more people I started to see on the horizon. A lady nearly bumped into me on her run. The cars were visible on I-65, and a tractor was loudly riding in one of the soccer fields close by. Gone was my silence, solitude, and my grasshopper hunt, but it was nice while it lasted.

Remember what I said the other day? That I might ramble? This post is an example of that. I don’t have a profound statement to make, or a tie-in to cancer. Because in reality, there were lots of hard things happening today. I’m tired, I’m stressed, I’m all antsy-in-my-pantsies about Monday. But in that moment this morning I was obsessed with finding a grasshopper, which was so fun and silly and bizarre and odd and exactly what I needed.