On the sidewalk in front of my apartment, a wet rag has been abandoned for a little over a month. Though it was probably left there by a maintenance worker when they came to do pest control, my roommates and I keep thinking someone else will pick it up, so on the concrete it has remained.
I walked by our resident rag yesterday and noticed it was no longer bleached white, but green with the growth of algae. Tiny sprouts were making their way through the cloth and into the sunshine. Ants marched by on their way to lunch. Then I saw it – the unmistakable spiral, the vulnerable, blobby body, the long, flexing eyestalks. Crawling along the woven threads was an adorable snail.
One person’s rag is another person’s snail’s paradise.
This little guy was just moseying along the wet rag like it was a dirt road in the country. I was enjoying watching his little eye stalks extend and retract when I began to notice more perfect spirals of varying sizes around my feet, on the rag, and on some of my planters. I noted two types of spiral shells: flatter ones and cone-shaped ones. I even saw some teeny tiny baby snails! Their neighbors were out, too: a centipede was weeding his garden while a pill bug hurried to the grocery store to grab ingredients for his dinner. I saw another snail who had had a little too much fun the night before – he was walking around, in public, completely shell less! The nerve!
It made me really happy to discover the world of life inhabiting the folds of this forgotten, dollar-store rag. These snails, bugs, and I call the same address home, but until I looked down, we were going about our lives completely unaware of each other. This obliviousness that we have to the details in our world both protects and confines us. There are so many patterns to notice in our environment as nature constantly repeats itself, but being cognizant of every facet of life would be overwhelming and probably pretty unbearable. We can find a happy medium by taking in Earth’s majesty a little at a time, so that we are continuously both comfortable and in awe.
Pay attention; the world is much more amazing than what you’ve seen so far.
We are all living at faster and faster rates, but today I challenge you to halt and look at the ground, bushes, and trees around you. You may discover a new world hidden in plain sight.
-Amy
Plant Sense 