Tuesday, March 27, 2012

In the Rain Tonight

I haven't written here in a long time, but tonight's walk home was worth writing about and I guess I just didn't fancy keeping it to myself. As I pen the title I think - that's too much like the Phil Collins song, so trite, but hey, I love that song - so the title stands.

Its not often that one can rejoice in the fact that a big highway runs right through one's neighborhood, but tonight I was thankful - and to be honest I really wished I could've walked underneath its giant cement roof all the way home, but alas, for the other three hundred and sixty some odd days of the year, I'm glad there's an ebankment, and landscaping covering it so you can pretend that parts of it aren't really there.

Its been raining non-stop since before 4:30 this afternoon. And besides the solid drenching I received on the last 2 blocks of my journey, at 10pm, I can't really complain, we need it. I've enjoyed the sunny weather lately, but its been a long dry winter with hardly any rain. Perhaps that's why there was such a party on the sidewalk tonight. I would venture to say that all the snails in my neighborhood were out and about.

It was like a party, there were small ones and big ones, some just sitting there, others trucking along, some in groups of two or three, and after a few paces on the sidewalk from the train station I started to notice them. Actually it was the crunching I noticed first (eek, Gretchen snail killer!). In my defense they were everywhere and it was challenging sometimes to dodge one without stepping on another!

I started to be curious, how many could there really be, so I started to count. I thought of E.O. Wilson and wondered, he was such a scientist would he have been counting on every walk, always collecting data, or would he just be noticing and observing. With the pouring down rain and darkness under the trees I am sure my count was far from accurate - but for my lack of exactitude I did start to notice something else.

Snails like fallen magnolia blossoms. I'm not sure they like to eat them or even touch them, but they sure like being around them. The spans of smooth open pavement where there was no debris, nary a snail could be counted. The spots with some deformity, or twigs and leaves had a few, but where the magnolia blossoms littered the pavement, that's where the real party was. Like snail Mardi Gras with petals like confetti scattered everywhere. Its hard enough dodging all the little guys in the dark, but picking them out from the blossoms and the leaves to step around them, well, let's just say I crossed the street a few times to avoid the inevitable crunching.

By the time I reached my door: 52. I won't break your heart (or in the case you're a snail hater, make your day) by telling you how many of them I found with the soles of my shoes, instead of my eyes (sorry guys!).

My time with the snails reminded me of two things:
1. there's always something wonderful happening around you or nearby - even like this dark, wet, stormy night, when I wanted to just pull up the collar of my rain coat and ignore the world around me until I got home to my warm little house - there was wonder all around. What is unpleasant to some is a party to others. I am glad I noticed.
2. I've been having somewhat of a dry lonely winter in my personal life lately, but as I walked up the steps to my house I thought, well, if the snails can wait out their long dry winter to finally meet up on the sidewalk tonight...I can wait a little longer too. The rain will come.

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