I recently woke one morning with a feeling of heaviness and unease. I was consumed with thoughts and concerns that colored everything a bit gray.
As I try to do each morning, I set off on a walk. It had been raining and everything was wet. In the later spring and summer months, the snails appear, and when it’s wet from rain or sprinklers, they often emerge out of the foliage and venture onto the sidewalks, seemingly oblivious to the potential dangers there.
I’m aware that we inadvertently, or intentionally, kill tiny creatures when we walk. But there’s something about a snail having its life ended under the foot of a human that is especially hard for me to bear.
When Pat and I walk together, I often stop and move a snail that’s in our path, then quickly catch up to him and resume our walk.
On this morning, though, I was walking alone. I didn’t have to accommodate the pace of a walking partner. And on this morning, there was an especially large number of snails on the sidewalk.
I stopped each time I saw one, gently picked it up and moved it to safety. I slowed down and took my time with each one. At some point, without thinking about it, I began talking to them. “Hey, buddy, let’s move you over here so you don’t get stepped on.” “Hi, there. How are you today?”
I learned that the snails with yellow shells pull inside when you pick them up, whereas the ones with brown shells do not.
I learned (the hard, sad way) that the shells of very old snails might be cloudy and grayish, and are quite fragile, even when handled carefully. I learned to very gently test the strength of a questionable shell, and to not intervene if I wasn’t confident it could withstand my touch.
I wondered how it felt to a snail to be plucked off the surface of a sidewalk, carried through the air and set onto the soil.
It must be a completely foreign experience for them. I hoped it wasn’t traumatic, or if it was, that it would soon be forgotten.
I moved about 25 or 30 snails that morning.
When I got home, I realized that the heaviness I had felt had completely disappeared. I was smiling, happy and at ease.
What had just happened?
How had my encounters with some snails completely transformed my mood and outlook on life?
I realized that each time I bent down, greeted a snail, and moved it to a safer place, I was feeling connection. In this case, connection to a snail.
Do humans connect with snails?
I thought about it. Why not? We can connect with just about anything – dogs, cats, horses, birds, trees, flowers, rocks, rivers, oceans – you name it. So of course, we can connect with snails if we’re so inclined.
Apparently, I was inclined.
I was astonished, though, at the power that connection had over my sense of well-being. It had transformed me from someone who was feeling mildly depressed to someone who was beaming with joy.
It made me realize how critically important it is for us to connect –- to ourselves and to others –-
- people,
- animals,
- plants,
- art,
- music,
- hobbies,
- spirituality,
- wherever we can find connection.
The connection reminds us we are not alone, that we are held here in some kind of network of love and meaning. There is always something or someone available to us. Even a snail.
I knew, of course, that some of the snails I rescued might later find their way back to the sidewalk and was reconciled to the knowledge they would not all survive.
But we had had our moment. I saw their peril and acted in love.
They probably received it with a degree of shock and irritation and then went on their way. But maybe a tiny bit of the love came through in some way. Or maybe that’s just my human fantasy.
But I’m hanging onto it because it makes me smile.
Just a thought…
Marsha
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