By AJ Bonilla, Staff photographer
I arrived at Newman early one morning to meet the new dean of students and take a portrait for the Vantage, and while waiting, I found myself with an excess of time to appreciate how beautiful our campus is.
The longer I took it all in, the closer I started looking at things one might not usually notice
I happened to be outside of Sacred Heart Hall, where I noticed that, at the feet of the statue of Saint John Henry Newman, was a perfectly round basin. I naively sat there appreciating a frog swimming around the water of the basin.
Minutes had passed when I had a dreadful realization: The frog was stuck swimming in a prison it could not escape, a prison that already held the corpse of the frog that took a dip before this one.
The longer I looked, the worse it got. Eventually, I noticed that three more frogs had stacked themselves in the cramped skimmer before the water level fell. The frogs were trapped by what one could argue is the inconsideration of creating an aesthetic. We follow a pursuit of visual gratification and often forget to consider the implications of that choice. That does not mean that we escape the accountability we must hold each other to in pursuit of respecting something greater than ourselves.
It took me all but a minute to find a tree branch and place it in the water so that future swimmers could use it to escape.
I spent the rest of my day and most of the time in my classes, thinking about how such a small thing can affect the lives of creatures we don't think about enough. When I came back, the branch was still there, and the frogs were not.
I think that spot will become a new stop on my daily walk around campus, and I encourage it to be a part of yours, too.
We have the privilege of sharing this space with the nature that makes our campus so beautiful, and we should work to be conscious and grateful for that in everything we do.
PHOTO: Courtesy photo
