The Gardeners Anonymous Blog: Do I speak Parseltongue?

October 12, 2010

Do I speak Parseltongue?

Last May, a rattlesnake bit me.

Today I picked up my first snake since then.

I stepped from the side door of my garage (into the part of my garden I call the plant hospital—a place where dead and dying plants go to rest—my plant hospice, if you will).

My husband was standing outside the door; lips parted to ask me a question, instead something caught his eye. He looked down on the ground near my foot and he said “A snake.”

I am very proud of myself for not jumping like a cat and hanging by my fingernails from the gutter of the garage. Instead, I looked down at the small serpent, noticing that the coloring was oh so similar to a rattlesnake.

Keeping my frayed wits about me I looked a little further and noticed the head was not in the shape of a triangle.

“It’s a baby gopher snake.”

My husband let out the breath he was holding, while he conjured up the image of my giant blue leg and the rest of my body hooked up to the tubes and wires of the ICU.

Much to my own surprise, I reached down and picked up the little snake. And the little gopher snake let me pick him up.

Most gophersnakes, when they are frightened, will inflate their bodies, hiss loudly and shake their tails back and forth to imitate a rattlesnake. This little snake was very relaxed and docile. I held onto it for a few minutes, giving it a tour of my yard.

I brought it into my house.

My son Liam was working at his computer. He was completely oblivious to the snake and me standing over him. So I lowered the snake down and let him slither across my son’s hand. Liam looked down at his hand and instantly recoiled until he realized that the snake was harmless. He asked to hold it, so I let him.

The next words that came out of Liam’s mouth were no surprised to me. “Can we keep him?” I had to fight the urge to keep the little snake as a pet. He was so cute and calm.

I wondered about the snake’s calmness. He seemed perfectly healthy. But I can’t remember ever picking up a snake so calm.

In the Harry Potter books, Harry is nearly killed by the evil Voldemort when he is a baby. Harry survives, of course, and as it turns out a bit of Voldemort is transferred to Harry through the evil ill-fated spell that Voldemort puts on Harry.

Later when Harry is eleven-years-old he finds out that he shares a special kinship with snakes—the same rapport that Voldemort has with them.

Maybe that is what has happened to me.

On the day I was bitten by a rattlesnake, the venom gave me some sort of special bond with snakes.

This would explain the calmness of the snake, either that or when the venom entered my body it affected my brain and made me think that I have some special ties to the serpent world and it’s only a matter of time before I go back into the hospital—this time because I’ve been committed by my husband.

I set my little kindred spirit free in the very same place where I found him.

Be free little snake, grow, get big.

And eat lots of rodents.

Please.