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As I reflected on this past year, the memory of a picture of a snail I had taken popped into my mind.   I had mostly visited my home country during the summer months when my daughters were young as we had those months off.  But here I was visiting my mom to help her after her surgery during an especially colorful autumn.  We would take a daily walk together, sometimes I would go by myself depending on the weather and how she felt.  Each time I walked through the vineyards I felt as if I was walking through a living painting.  The leaves on the vines formed the most beautiful canvas with their reds, oranges, yellows and greens giving it depth and life.  I didn’t want to miss out on those colors, so as often as possible I would follow the road through the village up into the open hillside, where terraced colored parcels of land covered it.  We had been blessed with sunny and cool weather which had allowed us to witness this beautiful symphony of colors.  But rain had arrived, during one of the breaks in between the showers I decided to go get some fresh air.  The wet asphalt glistened under the water that had pounded it.  As I left the village behind me I noticed that  the road was crowded with snails, it almost looked as if someone had tossed little rocks all over the road.  Judging by their size they were fairly young, they must all have hatched at the same time.  I wondered where they had been hiding until today.  I moved a few of them to the side of the road but then started to wonder if I really should do that as I had no idea what their destination was.  Did they want me to interfere, what if my interference did more harm than good, what if I had put them back to the side they had started from.  I had tried to move them toward the direction they were pointing at but I had no way of knowing if that is what they were doing, maybe they were checking each other out.  There were too many of them for me to move anyway, I hoped that the ones I had already installed on the side of the road were not wondering what had just happened, they had never flown before. It must have been a strange experience for them but I can’t speak for snails.  I hoped that my interference had not put them in the way of danger/predator.   Cars and dogs would be the problem as they move without noticing what they step on but at that time of year there isn’t much traffic on the road as the harvest is done and it was still early for pruning.  I had noticed that walkers with or without dogs were more plentiful in the afternoon, so the snails had several hours to crawl slowly to whichever side of the road they were going.  

After shedding all responsibility for the lives of all the snails surrounding me I slowed my pace so that I could admire them.  Some of them glistened like pearls against the wet dark asphalt, as I bent down to take a closer look and photograph them with my phone they hid quickly in their shells.  Darn, I needed to move more slowly and deliberately to capture the whole snail, I wanted to be able to see the tentacles and foot.  I stood back, giving them space, looking for a better angle to catch them in the act of being a snail.  I was pleased when I was able to photograph them to share their sparkle with my mom.  As I moved farther along I noticed one of the snails had a cone shaped shell.  I stopped in wonder to take a photo, as I slowly stepped around other snails I found a few more with cone shaped shells.  How interesting I thought.  Growing up all I ever saw were snails with round shells.   I know that because I loved to trace the spirals of an empty shell with my index finger and wondered what ever had happened to the gastropod that used to call this home.  As a child, I loved to get down to their level and study the movements of their feet and their tentacles.   I enjoyed watching them curl up their feet and retreat inside their shells when they felt my presence, I’d move away and wait until they’d come out again so that I could watch them munch on a dandelion or lettuce leaf.  During the summer I’d pick up a shell only to find it sealed shut.  I looked forward to seeing them roam free once again.  Where were the cone shaped ones in those days? 

I had come across an empty cone shaped white snail shell during a vacation in Hawaii.  I was not there long enough to run into live snails.   My mother had brought back a huge shell from South Africa, also cone shaped which I admired.   When I finally visited my brother and his family I hoped to see one that contained a gastropod in it.  On one of our early morning walks, my brother and I came across one that was crossing the trail.  My brother picked it up to show it to me, it’s foot was bigger than the palm of his hand.   How fortunate of me to be able to see a giant snail that I had heard of and read about.  Of course I wished to find an empty one to bring home with me.  Several days later as I walked the same path with his dog I noticed on top of the river rocks that divided a section of the path, an oddly shaped rock.  As I took a closer look I thought hallelujah, there it was, an empty snail shell.  It was not as big as the one we had seen moving on the path but I didn’t care.  Triumphantly I brought it back for show and tell.

As I stepped over the snails, I wondered if this was like the phenomenon called frequency illusion we are all familiar with.  Once you see something like cone shaped snails you start seeing them everywhere?   Maybe having been exposed to cone shaped snails and enjoying their shapes, I’d expect to find cone shaped snails among the rounded ones.  I had not expected to see any cone shaped ones on that day because I had never seen any previously in that area, but obviously my brain had.  Like a laser it was pointing them out to me.  It felt good that seeing snails was bringing back the same joy I felt all those years ago. 

Snails are interesting creatures, they crawl slowly through our world.  To humans, the pace of a snail is abhorrently slow, but it actually goes where it wants to go.  For humans even though our world is fast paced, we don’t seem to go very far, we often stay stuck where we don’t want to be.  The pace of a snail allows them to be seen, admired, examined and wondered at.  Slowing down, taking the time to look at something small is usually what is needed to feel connected to the world we live in.  As the saying goes, take the time to smell the roses.  Slowing down allows us to see the details of what surrounds us.  Nature provides us with wonders, it is an ever changing living picture.  A snail has no ears, it is fragile and yet it lives and survives in a world populated by creatures of all sizes.   Seeing so many snails on the road that day made me realize that we all have to take chances, living comes with many hardships but also many joyful moments.  The path of personal growth is usually littered with all kinds of empty shells, it’s good to leave them behind.