I think I was 10. In my neighbors back yard I chased a lizard until he disappeared under a cracked cement slab. I wanted that lizard. I thought he would make a great pet. The neighborhood kids agreed and for a couple of hours we persisted. We tried luring with food. We tried badgering with sticks. As the afternoon faded away, the kids scampered to their homes for dinner. Not I. I waited and waited until finally he emerged and I pounced. To my utter surprise I felt the wiggle in my hands. Success.

I made a cardboard boxed home for the critter and placed him in it for his first evening of captivity. I went to bed content and proud.

In the morning he was gone. I was unfamiliar with a lizards climbing skills. It did not matter. I learned something that day. Stubborn determination can get what you want, but the reward is not always in obtaining the prize, unless the prize is discovering more of who you are and what you can do.

A part of me is still 10… with wrinkles.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URR_4i5gIFU]