You're Doing it Right

Momma shows baby how it's done

In the evenings, when the dust has settled from work days, I like to go for walks in quiet neighborhoods. My year abroad in Italy taught me the beauty and sanctity of strolling and wandering after cena, and it's a routine I've managed to keep. What I enjoy most are glimpses of nature on urban streets. It is a thrill for me to catch creatures being busy, being themselves, going about their business on their own accord.

At night, kitties scurry to and fro, skunks slink from porch to porch, and wistful dogs stare out from behind glass doors and windows, itching to explore, too, like me. 


This night I came across a momma snail with baby in tow. The two were taking great pains to cross a vast expanse of concrete that took me just three steps to cover. In their wake, a translucent polka-dotted trail was left, marking their journey, leaving crystalline crumbs of their adventure. 


I stopped to marvel their delicate, purposeful, centimeter-at-the-most, strides. Yes, strides. Because strides were resolutely taken for I had seen the squiggly, gracefully-plotted proof of these night snails' expedition in which momma had indeed shown baby how it's done. 


"That's right," I had imagined she said to her young one trailing her every dot. "You're doing it right."

Father and Son

Last night, I escorted out of my home a daddy long leg. He had with him a wispy-legged little one. I don't know why I thought he was a father, and not a mother. Perhaps it was his confidence, his purposeful stride up my wall; he was full of intent as led the way for his little shadow. 

Life on a pale wall

I hoped to give them both a better life than the pale wall of my bedroom, so I placed a glass jar onto the wall and slid a credit card bill between the wall and the lid. Once outside, I chose a corner of a path and released them out into the night: their new world. 


In their frantic escape from the glass jar, father and son took off scurrying down the sidewalk in opposite directions. The moonlight shimmered on their tiny backs, and in their haste, I wondered if either one ever turned around and notice their divergent paths.


With my glass jar in hand, I went back to my pale walls. Wherever their new paths lead, I hope they'll be happy. I hope their slender legs carry them to where they belong. And I hope they meet again before too long. I like to imagine the father will turn around, wonder what is behind him, what he left, and what it was that made him hurry away and forget what was once most important.