Lizard, My Lizard

Anolis carolinensis
www.distinctlyflorida.com

Lizards! They are just so cool with their push-ups and throat fans and pugnacious attitude. Leaping lizards, battling lizards, lazy lies a lizard soaking up the sunshine. 

Did you play with them as a child? I did. I let them bite my earlobes and they dangled like living jewels. I turned them on their backs and "sang them to sleep". As an adult, I tossed palmetto bugs to them while gardening. I occasionally stumbled across them at their most intimate moments, then felt compelled to apologize and turn away. Even a lizard deserves a little privacy.

I'm not a lizard snob. I like the brown anole even though it is not native to Florida; and the curly tailed lizards are adorable and so brazen. But the green anole will always be first in my heart. His motions are smooth and slow and his green is so happy and bright. In moments of distress, he turns the brown of old leaves, his rib cage fans in and out with his heightened agitation and he will stiffen and extend his throat fan in defiance. 

Lizards are champion climbers. Their acrobatic leaps are worthy of Cirque du Soliel. I once saw a lizard leap through the air, nab a dragonfly and land a little precariously on an adjacent shrub. How did he manage to eat that whole thing? Amazing.

They don't always make the best choices and I remember one morning, on my drive to work, I was startled to see a lizard holding on for dear life to the wiper blade of my car; the wind buffeted him and he closed his eyes as though he was thinking, "Oh, good Lord, save me from this nightmare." I couldn't stop. I was on the expressway and I had a class to teach. He crawled out of my view and I don't know if he found shelter or was swept away to his death. This shook me up so badly that I called my husband, distraught and nearly in tears. Silly, I know, but my husband understands me and later when I went out to my car to drive home, I found he'd left me a note... Ode to a Lizard... written on the back of his business card and clamped under the same wiper blade.

The young ones will sometimes sneak into my house and I will later find their desiccated bodies and try not to think of how they'd suffered. I stopped spraying completely. I can live with a few bugs and I let the lizards take care of them. I feel as though I'm blurring the line between indoors and outside but this seems a very Florida thing to do. If a guest sees a palmetto bug, I break out the fly swatter. I'm not as fast as a lizard, but I get the job done.  

For all their charm and antics, I have chosen to honor the lizard with some Distinctly Florida products and to share some stories. I hope you will join me in expressing your love for lizards.

Green Anole Pottery 

Green Anole Pottery