Seeing crocodiles

   I have been thinking a lot about darkness recently as the days are getting steadily shorter. 

   Each day when I arrive in Golden Gate Park, it takes a little longer for the pre-sunrise light to fall on my part of the world, so I have a longer time to both be a bit frightened, but also to appreciate the opportunities that it affords me to see the world in more creative ways.

   As long as I feel reasonably safe, near-darkness has become my favorite kind of light.

   Two days ago, as I began my early day walk, I saw something off in the distance in the road, but had a difficult time determining what it was. At first, I thought it was a raccoon, but then decided that it was too small. I walked a few feet more towards it, and it crossed my mind that it could be a crocodile. 

   Of course, it doesn't make any sense that I had thought that. The conditions for the animal don't exist in that particular park (nor have they ever been reported at the location, as far as I know), and , as I further neared the object, it became clear that the shape was quite wrong. Still, crocodile was what had come to my mind.  

   I guess that the reason that this poor job of visual identification was so meaningful for me was that I was able to be so wildly off in this case. It isn't too difficult, in my opinion, to imagine things in a nonsensical way; believing them to be that way, not quite so simple.
   I hope and believe that this points to a loosening in the parameters for how I determine the world I maneuver through.
   In the past, I have tended to think of darkness negatively, as calling a person "dark" seems to connote. More recently, I tend to think of it more as that which can hide or disguise wonders.

Do you see a crocodile here?