Bare Branches

Last weekend, my cousin got married in a beautiful little church on a historic property in Tennessee. It was a cold, rainy afternoon. The sun was just going down. The altar was decked with candles. Very simple, very quiet.

The minister said, before things began in earnest, that the ceremony presented would be just as it would have been on this same property in the 1830’s. She indicated the plants that stood over the ceremonial space and the near-winter landscape outside and said, it takes courage to stand here in this space, with no distraction or lavish wedding elegance, to  declare love for one another under bare branches.

She was right. It was a powerfully simple, emotional ceremony.

The time of year when summer cools and begins to turn into fall always feels like a relief to me, the frantic, heated energy of one season giving way to  the cool calmness of the next. It feels like coming home, like remembering some deeper peace that got lost, for a moment, in the heat of things. This ceremony felt like that too, like a remembering of something ancient and true, like a peace that could only have come in this season, with its bare branches and cold rain.

Snake Dream

A couple of days ago I was working late in my office building, which sits in corporate park in suburban St. Louis. It’s not exactly a haven for wildlife, though in spring the Canadian geese come through and build nests in the grassy spots near the windows. In autumn, though, there is typically nothing but us human animals occupying the space. But when I opened the door to the parking lot, I was surprised to find a snake right beside my feet on the concrete steps.

It was a garter snake of the type my brother used to have when we were younger, nothing dangerous. It skittered away from me a bit and tried to blend in with the leaves, and I stood quietly so as not to frighten it. After a moment, I said hello to it and asked what in the world it was doing there. (This is the part of the story the Photographer found incredible: “You TALKED to it? You’re such a city girl.”) I worried that anyone else who came upon it might feel threatened and kill it, and I did not want that to happen. I thought perhaps I could move it, but truly, it seemed to want to be left alone. It was completely still, except for its tongue, which flicked out a few times, tasting the air, trying to determine if I had left yet. “Be careful,” I whispered. “Don’t get hurt.” And then I left it alone.

I’ve looked for the snake again each day as I walk in that same door, and each night as I leave. I haven’t seen it. I haven’t heard that anyone else has encountered a snake there. I hope it’s safe. Two days later, the snake is still talking to me. When I ask it, what are you doing here, perhaps it says, what are YOU doing here? Perhaps I don’t belong in a corporate office park any more than it does, and perhaps it is just as dangerous for me to be there. Perhaps I am just as much at risk of showing my true self to the wrong person, who may find that threatening and lash out in some way. Perhaps it will be someone who finds me talking to a snake in the parking lot, and thinks we are both frightening, the snake and me.