snail song
“This pre-conscious longing grew to become the mind, body, and spirit of a person. This belonging was not a static, fixed attachment. It was alive with desire and the wish to become the one you dreamed.”
In 2010 I packed up everything I owned into my station wagon and left Alice Springs, thinking I was leaving for the final time. It felt like a big decision with lots to process and the road trip of over 2,000 kilometres provided me with an opportunity for this! Of the stops I made along the way, there was one I made simply because I was drawn by its name: Mount Remarkable. It was here on an early morning walk that I felt some of the weight of my big life decision lift.
What I remember of this morning was a sense of the world slowing down as I walked along a woodland trail, my sleepy mind in synchrony with the slow morning fog still lifting. I remember being surrounded by soft shades of green, a refreshing change to the arid palette of the desert. Leaves glistened with dewdrops and I kept stopping to take a closer look at spider webs glittering with beads of watery light.
And the snails. Oh the snails! Once I saw them, hundreds of them dotted along the trail and dancing among the sea of droplets, I could not unsee them. What was it about these slow-moving, shelled creatures that made me feel so light and at ease? Still today I cannot remember the details of where I camped or even what landmarks I saw on that walk that morning. But the shades of green, the droplet-covered spider webs, the leaves covered in dew, and the snails in their little white shells – these I’ve held onto.
I didn’t know then that I would make my way back to the red centre. At the time I needed to make that decision to leave with everything, wholeheartedly, to give a new place and new beginnings a go. And without doing that I wouldn’t have been able to return a few years later to this small town in the middle of a large dry continent with some renewed vigour, some of that soft light green packed into my traveling armour.
When I started writing the snail song, feelings stirred from that Mount Remarkable walk were still present: a feeling of a weight lifting, of new beginnings starting to unfurl. Then what came as the song took form was a love song, perhaps of finding strength and courage in one’s self as opposed to meeting another person.
I only stuck my little head out
when there was no-one else about
until you came
The snail song is also about how we shy, introverted people find ways to get out into the world so that we don’t miss out on whatever it is that lays out there waiting for us.
here comes the sun to wake me up
it’s time to rise, to stand up and be found
snail song
I was a snail in a little white house
round little shell was my little white house
I only stuck my little head out
when there was no-one else about
until you came
I never dared to say a word
in case the word I said was the wrong word
I hung my head in shame
my little heart was locked in a cage
never felt the sunlight on its face
here comes the sun to wake me up
it’s time to rise, to stand up and be found
hey little snail, I like your house
but it’s time to get outside and look around
‘cause here comes the sun
it’s time to rise up and found
‘cause here comes the sun
