Modest Goddess

I found a little snake on the road while I was out running today. I’m always happy to see a non-squished animal during my jaunts. Just a couple of weeks ago, a little sparrow plopped into the middle of the road in front of me and did this circular-spinning thing like its head was pinned to the ground, flapping crazily. I thought it might have been stunned, or maybe had an inner-ear infection. So I scooped it up carefully. It’s amazing how still a bird will get when you cup your hands around it. I carried it to the curb because I didn’t want either of us to get squished by a car, and then the bird just wriggled out of my hands and winged away, and just like that it was gone. And I was relieved I wasn’t going to have to stick it in my jog bra and carry it home and then sit down with the phone book and find a wild-bird rehabilitator.

But this snake today wasn’t in such good shape. It looked like a little garter snake, maybe a foot or so long, and it was wriggling in a slow way that made me think it was sick. And one of its eyes was bulging a little bit, like it had had a snake stroke, or been pecked at by a bird. I tried to pick it up with a stick, because lots of stupid people have been bit by snakes when they pick them up, but then I realized this snake wasn’t going to go after me, so I grabbed it by its tail and deposited it in some nearby woods. Then I felt guilty for not putting it in a nicer place, perhaps a nice cool patch of damp lawn. But I’d already jogged on.

We’re so hungry for connection to the natural world.