It's All About Lizards - Part I - The Lizard Behind the Painting

Well, I'm back home after spending two months in the islands. While I was there I wrote up a series of blogs, which I will now inflict on you, the gentle reader. So, for the next five posts it’s all about lizards.

I have always liked lizards. I think I was about six when I first became aware of them. At least that’s about the time of my first memory of a specific lizard.

We lived in a house in Cruz Bay on St. John called The Shell. On one wall was a painting. If one faced the painting to its left was a chaise lounge then an open doorway which led to the kitchen, bedrooms and bath. Over the doorway was a light.

A lizard lived behind the painting.

When Dad came home from work he would often spend the time before dinner stretched out the chaise reading or doing a cross word puzzle. There is no long twilight in the tropics, it gets dark very quickly once the sun goes down, so the light would be turned on.

It wasn’t long before the light had attracted a number of moths. It was then that the lizard, who lived behind the painting, would appear. Now he could have gone directly to the light from the painting, but he rarely did. He would walk down the wall, jump on the chaise and go across my father’s chest, then go up to the light to have a meal. When he was through, he would go back the way he came, crossing Dad’s chest to return to his home behind the painting. The lizard usually only went to the light when someone was in the chaise. He would cross anyone’s chest, but he seemed to prefer Dad.

Who can know what was going on in his lizard brain. Sometimes my sister and I would catch flies for him. He would eat them out of our fingers.