Snake Stories

The snake, no bigger than the length of my hand, a beautiful Hershey Kiss Milk Chocolate wiggled across the red dirt path.

Ignoring the phallic and Freudian implications I want you to know. I DON’T LIKE SNAKES.

My opinion was influenced by my Grandmother. Because we lived on 14 acres of land, much of it woods, snakes were not uncommon. We always knew when she saw one, even if the windows and doors were closed. Most of the neighbors knew. Some probably suspected her husband of wife abuse. She gave credence to the cliché screaming bloody murder.

As a student teacher I turned from writing on the chalk board to look into the flickering tongue of a snake, held by one of my less likeable students. Rather than repeat my grandmother’s reaction, I calmly (on the exterior) took the snake from the kid, being careful to hold it around its neck in case it was poisonous, asked him questions and pretending to be one of those people on TV who show animals to talk show hosts, asked the other kids if they wanted to hold it. This was NOT bravery. It had taken a nano second to realize that any other reaction would have brought daily donations of creatures that would be better left in the wild. The student was hovering between a low D and an F. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the teacher who wouldn’t be cowered.

Right before I gave birth to my daughter, I dreamed I was in bed when my mother arrived. She was wearing a fake fur white coat with black spots. The collar was a fuzzy snake that slithered off. I woke up and told my husband, got up, went to the bathroom as most very pregnant women do. After going back to sleep I dreamed the same snake wiggled over to my bed, raised his head cobra style and said, “I bet you thought you got rid of me in the last dream.”

My last snake dream was after a day in Montaillou http://www.mairie-montaillou.fr My friends Robin, Ruth, Barbara and I had visited the château ruins where in the late 1300s the Lady Béatrice had an affair with Pierre Clergue, the local priest. As Robin and I were heading down the path after Barbara and Ruth, a snake crossed our path. That night I dreamed that the snake had followed us, hid under the car, waited for us two hours while we ate in a restaurant, got off at the movie theatre in Argelés where Robin let Barbara and I off, followed me for two blocks to my home, slipped under the front door and up two flights of stairs, then made it under my door where a piece of paper is too thick to fit and up the last flight of stairs. Even though I knew it was totally stupid, I slept the rest of the night with the light on.

The little milk chocolate snake slipped into the brush at the edge of the path. I never thought that baby snakes could be cute like baby cats, dogs, monkeys, elephants, etc., but I was wrong.