So about a year ago, I was on my way to work, walking on a concrete sidewalk, with the sun rising to my left, and a cool breeze in the air. It was a very dramatic and almost cheesy morning, as I’m sure you can tell.
Anyway, as I approached my final destination, there was the tiny snail on the sidewalk. For some reason this struck me as a great photo so I stopped, laid on the ground, as cars sped by me at 50 mph, hopefully paying no attention to my strange activities at 6:00 am.
The featured image you see on this post, is a slightly altered, zoomed-in version of my result. Something about this scene just struck me as beautiful, and I couldn’t leave this snail without capturing a memory of it.
Eight hours later, as I began walking home from my shift, satisfied that I did my best to provide the people of Clarkston their morning coffee, I ran into the same snail. Except this time, the snail had a dried trail of slime behind it, and it was about a foot further up the hill than it had been earlier that morning.
It was very hot outside so my first thought was, oh my gosh, how do I save this little creature??!
But then I realized it was still inching along in it’s own timely manner, and it didn’t need my help, nor would it accept assistance — I will admit, I did try to get the snail to the cool grass, but it wouldn’t budge, and I didn’t wanna hurt it.
Anyway, I’m sure this little tale may sound silly, perhaps even insane, to some, but I found it to be a very enlightening experience. I had just spent a very long eight hours serving crabby customers, and I felt like I had worked my ass off. Yet, this little snail had spent the same amount of time working as I had, and had only made one foot of progress!
I guess I’m not sure if there is a moral to this story or if I even can explain why it had an impact on me. But when I looked at the situation, it made me feel more grateful for the long hard day’s work I had just put in, and for the little things in life that I have.
That song, “Little Wonders,” by Rob Thomas from the movie, Meet the Robinsons, just kept playing in my head and I found myself smiling about that little snail, the wonderful picture it provided me, and the great progress both it and I had made that day.
Don’t forget to acknowledge the little wonders in our everyday lives.