"Tess" - Commentary by Tony Seton

Tess

I met a snake last week. No, not a red-state Bushie but an actual serpent. A six-year old python named Tess. She’s a cutie, about four pounds, what with a coupla mice working their way, albeit involuntarily, through her four-foot length. She was the first snake I ever actually touched, as in with my fingers. I once had a garter snake slither across to top of my bare foot, but that wasn’t by choice.

My friend Denise and I were at a Twelfth Night Party, sitting on a couch, when we were approach by young Drew -- he’s eight-ish -- who had Tess coiled around his arm. Denise, a woman of the world, reached out and gently stroked her head. I, of a different world, was "instinctively" cautious.

Several months earlier, while walking along my street, I met several neighbors, one of them a girl who had a corn snake draped around her neck. If you’ve never seen a corn snake, and they are a pet snake of choice, they are bright orange and red; quite startling. Also, I’ve never been attracted -- indeed, I’ve been put off -- by snakes, so when she approached me with it, when the snake lifted its head in my direction, I pulled back, and when she came forward toward me I asked her not to.

I don’t know where my fear of snakes came from. Part of it no doubt is cultural. When I lived in the rural wilds of the north state I encountered a number of snakes and killed three rattlers near the house. My attitude was one of self-defense, but I wasn’t entirely happy with my feelings. Me with a gun or a shovel, it wasn’t a fair fight.

I’ve always known my fear wasn’t rational, but there wasn’t much opportunity to confront it. Until Denise took Tess from the boy and sort of laid her across my stomach. It was then that I looked into her face and saw, somehow, warmth in her eyes. Her tongue flicked out almost coquettishly. Gently I stroked the top of her head. I won’t say that she smiled at me, but Drew said she rarely accepted that from strangers.

Later, Tess was curled up in Denise’s upturned beret, which I held in my palm as I continued to stroke her. Until that evening I had only thought of cats and dogs as pets, but this night the scales fell from my eyes. Never too late for that.

And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.