Synaptic

Joanna Blomquist wrote “On Worlds” in the section of Personal Essay where students were asked to write about their relationship to the natural world. Joanna’s experience in crossing what we might normally think of the boundaries between animals and human beings–her “snake handling”–was one of the highlights of the semester.

-Keith Ratzlaff

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One warm summer night a while back, I was walking to the house in the dark after helping Dad out in the barn. I had a flashlight in my hand, but I left it turned off, enjoying the feeling of walking in the warm darkness. It was a clear evening, and I stopped to look up at the stars. This was one of the reasons I love living out in the country – the stars come out so much clearer. I stood in the middle of the front yard and gazed into the vast expanses of sky above me. The wash of silver dots filled the sky, looking as if someone had painted the dome above the Earth with glitter. I stood there in awe, sensing the usual feeling of smallness one gets from trying to contemplate the galaxies and sheer space above their heads.

As I gazed upward, totally still, I started to hear noises around me. Out of the darkness, a rustling started up, though I could feel no breeze. First, the rustle came from my right, and then I heard another rustle over beyond me on my left. I peered into the black, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of our cats prowling about in the night, but there was nothing. The rustling grew, until I’m surrounded by the sound of small, constant motion in the grass. Whether they had been lulled into complacency by my silence, or I had just paused long enough to hear them for the first time, what sounded like hundreds of little nocturnal creatures had started going about their nightly business.

I stood there that night, sandwiched between the vast expanses of glittering galaxies above my head, and the activity of the world at my feet, and felt a profound sense of discomfort. Though I had walked and played in this yard for over fifteen years, here, in the dark, it became a crawling, alien place. Whatever I might have thought, I was not the only one who considered this place my home.

That encounter with the unknown that night got me thinking about how I viewed my place in my ecosystem. As a human, my main concern is usually human things. I worry about school and extracurricular activities, driving places in a climate controlled car, and dashing in and out of buildings on concrete walkways that minimized the amount of interaction I have with the world around me. Human kind is wrapped up in itself, conveniently believing that it, for the most part, has control over the trees and grasses in our lawns and parks. Subconsciously, we have tried to draw a line, saying, “Nature comes up to here, we live on this side.” Nature itself, however, has a funny habit of disregarding our imaginary line.

I moved home last spring from school, still filled with adrenaline from final exams. One particular day, I had a full to-do list. There was a large pile of stuff sitting in the living room that had accumulated in my dorm room throughout the year, which needed to be put…somewhere. I had gone into my room to put away a bank statement, pulled open the top drawer, and there was something curled up in amongst an old set of colored pencils. The thing twitched, I realized there was a snake in my desk drawer, living thing amongst the rag-tag bunch of office supplies. He was as big around as a nickel, tan with two rows of alternating black spots. He (she?) had one long yellow stripe going down the center of his back, and two cream colored stripes going down his sides. At my opening the drawer, the snake moved his head, his small black eyes staring at me as his little, his delicate tongue flicking out at me. I stared down at the snake and he stared back.

If I had been Annie Dillard, Rachel Carson, or someone else more attune to the delicate sensibilities of snakes, I would have left the desk drawer open, gazing at the fascinating bit of creation before me nestled against old papers. Being me, though, I carefully but swiftly shut the drawer and leaned against my desk, my heart beating fast. The animal instinct in my head warning me Danger! Snake! Ah! – my sense of self-preservation kicking into overdrive.

The other part of my brain stared in fascination at the now closed desk drawer, realizing the futility of my actions. Wherever the snake had come from, he must have gotten into the drawer through the back, since the drawer had been shut when I walked into the room. Closing the drawer did not lock the snake safely away; it just prevented me from seeing him. Adrenaline continued to pump through my veins, a mixture of excitement with a touch of danger. There was a snake in my desk drawer!

Garter snakes, or thamnophis sirtalis, according to herpnet.net, are really common in the state of Iowa. They like moist habitats the best, but can also be found in open fields, grasslands, and forested areas. Very adaptable, they can live in parks, vacant lots, farmland, and backyards as well. Especially in winter, they like taking cover underground in burrows or peoples’ basements. They are NOT poisonous, and can eat just about anything that they can catch and swallow. If you believe what people say online, these snakes also enjoy surprising unsuspecting humans in their spare time – from basking on porches, to full laundry baskets, to appearing just as people are getting out of the shower. When not terrorizing the human population, they like resting in enclosed areas where they can feel safe, like laundry hampers, boxes, or, in my case, desk drawers.

I stood there, looking through the window out into the sunny, normal day playing itself out in the backyard, wracking my brain for some idea of what to do with to do next. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, not necessarily out of fear, but out of excitement. There was a snake in my desk drawer! How often does that happen? I was the only one in the house – Dad had gone into town and I didn’t know when to expect him back. I was on my own.

I thought back to what knowledge I had of snakes. Oddly enough, it was larger than most people’s experiences. We live in an old house, so throughout most of my childhood there has been a resident snake living in our damp, unfinished basement. The first couple times Mom encountered it when going down stairs to do laundry, she would shriek and dash back up the stairs to get Dad to take care of it. By the time Dad would in from the barn to get it, the snake would be gone. Eventually, Mom got so used to the snake’s presence that when she did encounter it, she would grab a broom and sweep it off into a corner so she could go about her business.

One of my earliest memories of snakes in our house happened when I was about three. My Grandpa Blomquist was over for lunch, and we were all sitting around the kitchen table finishing up our meal. Mom got up to go get dessert and screamed! I looked over the top of the tall, straight-backed chair just in time to see a snake, dark, at least three feet long and thicker than a broomstick, slither out from underneath the stove. Mom got out of there as Dad went to get leather gloves to grab the snake so it could be released outside – far away from the house. Grandpa just sat beside me and laughed, more amused by the whole situation than alarmed. He was a tough old farmer – not too much phased him.

Gloves! That was what I needed! Dad had said at the time that the gloves would allow more traction to hold the snake so you could keep your grip. Quickly, I ran and got gardening gloves from the bin in the kitchen. Armed with my pink-flowered gloves, I opened back up the drawer. He was still there, curled up and staring out at me with his black, beady little eyes. Carefully, I reached for just behind his head, and pulled him out. He didn’t try to bite or thrash around; he just wrapped himself around my hand and wrist for support. Keeping a firm grip on him, I went to sit outside, wanting to wait to let him go so Dad would get a chance to see him. Plus, deep down, I wanted a witness to what had happened. After all, I had just caught a snake single-handedly, and wanted someone else to share the amazement I had felt at finding it in my desk drawer.

As I sat, he attempted to slide his smooth body through my hands and slither away from me. Through my gloves, I could feel his muscular little body working out of my hands despite my grip on him. Just as he’d slip out of one hand, I’d put the other one up, causing him to run through my fingers in a continuous cycle. He was beautiful in his own way, and totally alien from what I usually saw day to day.

How had he managed to live in the house for so long? The only thing I could figure out was that he had managed to slip into the basement, and then crawl up through the heating vent to my room. Since I had been away at school, no one would have disturbed him in his hideout in my desk. He hadn’t made the distinction like I had that he, as a snake, belonged outside the house with the rest of nature. He had just wanted a warm place to stay, which seemed like a reasonable request.

After about five minutes or so, Dad drove up the driveway in his battered white Ford pickup beside me. I walked over to him, proudly displaying the snake in my grip. Dad gave it a look-over – interested, but more in the way Grandpa had been all those years ago when the snake inched his way out from under the stove. He lived and worked outside amongst creatures all the time as a farmer and wasn’t confined to a lifestyle that kept him ignorant of what other organisms were living nearby. This new creature I had found, even within the bounds of our house, held no new revelations for him.

My find properly displayed, I walked behind the house to a stand of trees where I could release the snake. As I watched him slither away in the grass, I thought again of that night filled with stars and rustling, unknown worlds of creatures. Now I knew one small part of that unknown world. Sure, it’s not much compared to the vast amounts of space in the galaxy and the small groups of creatures here on earth, but at least one boundary had been broken down between my human centered world and the world right outside my door. I smile and sit in the warm sunny grass a little while longer before walking back to Dad and the house.