today I handled my first boa constrictor. there was a man sitting outside the coffee exchange letting the snake slide around his shoulders, and when I saw this I exclaimed, "oh my god" in actual surprise and not horror or fear but just surprise. and then the old man seated next to him said, "that's women for you" and I spun around on my left heel (I had, by that time, walked past the man and his black ringed creature) and said, "may I hold it?" which is a very big thing for me since I'd never actually touched a snake -- not even when we went on field trips to the zoo or to the random animal keeper in the woods (5th grade). when I was a girl I had a recurring dream about a snake in my grandparents' yard that I would run away from and it would leap up and bite me in the back and I would spin around trying to pull it off and feel the poison fill my body and make me slow. just a year ago sunshine plucked a little green snake off the ground and it was all I could do not to run like hell away.

so why did this lifetime of fear not spring upon me like the snake of my dreams and drive me as far from the reptile as possible? obviously it was the old man's comment. lately I've been feeling a little like the kind of girl one would expect - not exactly a stereotype but not a surprise either (the word surprise keeps coming up. perhaps I'll meditate on that later). from time to time it's gotten me down.

and today I snapped. I snapped so hard that I held out my hands to a boa constrictor.

what I learned in this encounter is that it's true that snakes aren't slimy (everyone knows that but it's still surprising somehow) and that to feel a constrictor move around you is to understand what they mean when they say muscle, and in the end, I'm still just about what you would expect.