Frog was in his garden. Toad came walking by.
“What a very fine garden you have, Frog,” he said.
“Yes”, said Frog. “It is very nice, but it was hard work.”
“I wish I had a garden,” said Toad.
“Here are some flower seeds. Plant them in the ground”, said Frog, “and soon you too will have a garden”.
“How soon?” asked Toad.
“Quite soon,” said Frog.
Toad ran home. He planted the flower seeds.
“Now seeds,” said Toad, “start growing.”
Toad walked up and down a few times. The seeds did not start to grow. Toad put his head close to the ground and said loudly,
“Now seeds, start growing!”
Toad looked down at the ground again. The seeds did not start to grow. Toad put his head very close to the ground and shouted,
“NOW SEEDS, START GROWING!”
Frog came running up the path.
“What is all this noise?” he asked.
“My seeds will not grow,” said Toad.
“You are shouting too much,” said Frog. “These poor seeds are afraid to grow.”
“My seeds are afraid to grow?” asked Toad.
“Of course,” said Frog. “Leave them alone for a few days. Let the sun shine on them, let the rain fall on them. Soon your seeds will start to grow.”
That night Toad looked out his window.
“Drat!” said Toad. “My seeds have not started to grow. They must be afraid of the dark.”
Toad went out to his garden with some candles.
“I will read the seeds a story,” said Toad. “Then they will not be afraid.”
Toad read a long story to his seeds. All the next day Toad sang songs to his seeds. And all the next day Toad read poems to his seeds. And all the next day Toad played music for his seeds.
Toad looked at the ground. The seeds still did not start to grow.
“What shall I do?” cried Toad. “These must be the most frightened seeds in the whole world!”
Then Toad felt very tired and he fell asleep.
“Toad, Toad, wake up,” said Frog. “Look at your garden!”
Toad looked at his garden. Little green plants were coming up out of the ground.
“At last,” shouted Toad, “my seeds have stopped being afraid to grow!”
“And now you will have a nice garden too,” said Frog.
“Yes”, said Toad, “but you were right, Frog. It was very hard work.”
The Garden from Arnold Lobel – Frog And Toad: The Complete Collection
Lobel described his delightful tales as “… adult stories, slightly disguised as children’s stories.” And indeed, like Toad, sometimes we get so caught up in seeking instant gratification that we forget how to live at a slower pace. We want those seeds to grow right now!
An anecdote that correlates the lack of patience with increasing frustration, one of the motifs of the Toad and Frog story, is regarding the philosopher Immanuel Kant.
In 1802 Kant discharged Lampe, the faithful servant who had been with him for years. But he could not dismiss him from his mind, and this began to trouble him greatly.
He therefore made an entry in his memorandum books: “Remember, from now on the name of Lampe must be completely forgotten.”
Another idea from The Garden story is that anything worth growing, be it a relationship, a child, our self, takes time and careful tending. We sometimes struggle to make sense of the unspoken rules of nurturing, and we become harassed by the narratives we build, especially when we compare our gardens to others. We are beautifully reminded that some things will succeed not due to but despite our “hard work”.
Leave them alone for a few days.
Let the sun shine on them,
let the rain fall on them.
Soon your seeds will start to grow.
There is a memorable metaphor about this concept in Sarah Naish’s book, The A-Z of Therapeutic Parenting. Adopting five siblings that suffered unspeakable abuse and trauma, Naish imagined herself standing on a shoreline with a flat lake in front of her, the Trauma Lake. With the benefit of hindsight, Naish realised that every time she tended to the gardens of her children, undoing the horrors the children experienced, she was throwing a rock the in the Trauma Lake. It seemed to make no change, just a few ripples and the lake became once more unsurmountable. The trauma running in her children was deep. But over the years and caress after caress, Naish realised that the rocks started to break the lake’s surface.
They couldn’t have surfaced above the trauma without the blocks I had first put in there. All that time… and I thought nothing was changing.
Sarah Naish – The A-Z of Therapeutic Parenting.
In the end, perhaps the seeds did grow faster because of listening to Toad’s stories, and music and poems. Valuable growth and change happen incrementally, and accepting that some things will follow their due course and cannot be rushed is essential to our everyday well-being.