As you may recall I sent out a request for titles, which I received in abundance, in which to indulge on my birthday. I have compiled them into a list, and I mean to try each one, but in the mail last night there came an unexpected surprise.
I forced myself to wait to open it until today, the official day of my birth, and while sitting with my scone(s) and cup of Ceylon tea, I finally opened the first package from Lesley.
I have not even opened the second because I'm so absorbed in the first. What an enchanting tale! The writer became deathly sick from some virus acquired in Europe to which no doctor was able to find a cure and from which she had long relapses of poor health. Such that she required a studio apartment as opposed to her 1800's farmhouse, and a caregiver.
But some friend brought her a snail, tucked under the leaves of a violet plant, when she came to visit and it is this snail about which the story revolves. Imagine making friends with a snail! And yet, it shows how any connection to any living thing can mean all the difference to our healing.
"Though holding and reading a book for any length of time involved levels of strength and concentration that were beyond me, watching the snail was completely relaxing. I observed without thinking, looking into the terrarium simply to feel connected to another creature; another life was being lived just a few inches away." (p. 33)
Thank you, Lesley, I'm loving it.
