The Sadness of Empty Vines

Blackberries, salmonberries, thimbleberries, blackcaps, huckleberries—
all once so abundant, now reduced to bare stems.
I was struck by the sadness of the empty vines.

The season of sweetness has passed, and what remains is absence.
Where there were once small delights to pluck and savor, there are now only thorns, dry leaves, and the stark truth of change.

Each vine seemed to whisper a quiet goodbye, and the emptiness felt heavy, like loss. For months, these brambles had offered sweetness and surprise—a handful of berries on the trail, a burst of juice that stained my fingers, a reminder of the generosity of the land. Now, the generosity has withdrawn. Nature has closed her hand.

And yet, just as this thought formed, a strange sound arose: the frogs. Their voices carried across the woods, and through the brambles, a chorus sounding like an old wooden floor groaning beneath footsteps. Creaking, rhythmic, insistent. I had to laugh—because I know that sound. It’s the same accent I wake up with in the morning, my own frog-song before coffee. The vines may be silent, but the frogs are not. They croon from hidden pools and shady hidey-holes, announcing themselves in a language I cannot understand. Are they proclaiming the shift of the season? Calling out to Mother Nature—“C’mon and rain, already!”? Or are they simply being frogs, living the truth of their amphibian lives, untroubled by whether the berries have gone?

In that moment, the two realities collided: the loss of the berries, the persistence of the frogs. It made me realize that life is rarely one-note. Even in absence, something else rises. Even in silence, a new voice emerges.

The vines teach me that sweetness cannot last forever. Nothing in life can be endlessly abundant. Friendships shift. Health falters. Opportunities ripen, are enjoyed, and then are gone. If I cling too tightly to the memory of the berries’ sweetness, I risk scratching myself on the lingering thorns. Nature reminds me that clinging to what has passed is not the same as gratitude. Gratitude honors what was. Clinging resists what is.

The frogs, on the other hand, remind me that even as one thing disappears, another begins. Their creaking song is not melodious in the way birdsong is, but it is steady. It fills the air with a presence that demands attention. Where the vines withdraw, the frogs arrive. They do not apologize for being rough-voiced or strange. They simply announce, we are here now.

This interplay between empty vines and creaking frogs feels like a metaphor for life’s transitions. How often do we grieve what has gone, without listening for what is arriving? How often do we stand in front of the empty vines, lamenting the loss of sweetness, while just over our shoulder, frogs are calling us to pay attention to a different rhythm, a new season?

It’s tempting to judge the frogs as less beautiful than the berries. Who wouldn’t prefer the burst of fruit on the tongue to a croaky chorus echoing through the dusk like an antique set of hinges whining for a shot of WD40? But mindfulness asks me to suspend judgment. To accept the frogs as equal teachers. Their voices remind me that life is not made of constant delights, but of shifting textures. Some seasons taste sweet. Others sound creaky. Both are true. Both are life.

If I let myself, I can find mindfulness in this duality. When I feel the pang of loss—whether for summer berries, for people I miss, or for chapters of life that are closed—I can pause. I can breathe into the emptiness of the vines. Let my heart acknowledge the sadness. And then I can turn, ears open, to whatever new sound or presence is calling in that same moment. It might be frogs, or waves upon the shore, or even silence itself. The invitation is the same: to be here, now, with what is.

Perhaps this is the practice: not to prefer one over the other, but to let both exist in me at once. To hold the memory of sweetness and the reality of creaking. To honor both the loss and the emergence. In doing so, I make space for life as it truly is: layered, complex, fleeting, surprising.

The vines are stripped. The frogs are singing.
And I, walking between them, am learning that mindfulness is not about choosing one over the other. It is about noticing both, and allowing them to inform me.

So today, I carry this thought: When life feels emptied of sweetness, listen for the frogs. Something new is always announcing itself, even if its voice is weird at first.