For about three years I tramped and waded but never complained when it rained. I was 10 going on 11 and I had my grown-up life all figured out.
One afternoon as I tramped through the mud – towards the place I called home back then – I stepped on a snake. I think the poor thing was more startled than I was and it tried biting my little foot through my sturdy long boots.
I looked at that snake and I thought: “Ha! You think I’m afraid of you? Not even my mother can stop me from going to school. I have a plan, snake! A plan I tell you!” At that time I was reading Mark Twain, Enid Blyton and lots of mysteries. Even then I knew I wasn’t quite normal. Talking to a snake, ha!
I realized then that there was no need to be afraid of anything. It was that day I got the bad habit of confronting my fears. I have an uncle they call ‘Reptile’ and I got him to teach me all about snakes, alligators, frogs and all the nasty looking things, including leeches, no one ever wants to touch.
Back then my plan was to be a lawyer or an accountant. I wanted to make money, to help people, to take care of my mother.
At 12, I was reading To Kill a Mockingbird, Shane, Harry Potter, Goosebumps, Archie Comics and anything I could get my hands on. At 15, I graduated to romance novels. As my interest in books changed so too did my plan.
Over the years I fiddled with poetry, creative writing and art. I studied Business, moved on to Computer Science then all of a sudden it was Physics and Geography. I was one confused teen. But aren’t most of us at that age?
These days I’m reading Walter Raleigh’s journals and writing things – like this piece right here – to inform and sometimes to entertain you. I don’t live with my mother anymore but still she manages to take care of me.
I assure you, I don’t practice law nor do I do anyone’s accounts where I am these days. What on earth happened to my plan? I hope you’re not asking yourself the same thing.
Now, I don’t plan anything. Planning is a snake-talking waste of time!
I – once a child who was more than an hour early for everything – now rush to work more than an hour past the time I really should get there. I – once a child who wanted just to be a lawyer and take care of her mother – now write for my daily bread.
Currently, I listen to all kinds of snakes talk. I watch alligators gobble up poor, unsuspecting creatures and I see leeches in action all over this land of mine. These days I do the thing I didn’t plan to do all these years later. I give attention to all sorts of parasites and creatures. (srh.midnight@gmail.com)
