Saints of Feather and Fang by Caryn Rivadeneira

Author:Caryn Rivadeneira [Rivadeneira, Caryn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: NAT001000 Nature / Animals / General, REL012040 Religion / Christian Life / Inspirational, PET010000 Pets / Essays & Narratives
Publisher: Broadleaf Books

7

Fear

How to Pet a Snake

I lay back, stretched next to my husband and kids across a rickety picnic table on the shores of Green Bay. Others all around us are doing just the same. We’re campers at Door County, in Wisconsin’s Peninsula State Park, all waiting for dusk to fall and for thousands of bats to emerge from the attic of a century-old cabin. The air around us bristles with excitement. The kids can’t wait.

But me? I’m bristling with fear. Though my appreciation for bats has grown over the years, and though I can now happily watch them fly high above my house in the evenings and give thanks for the good mosquito-eating service they provide, I’m not sure if my lifelong fear of these leathery, fangy, flying beasts is really conquered. Here on this beautiful night, in beautiful woods, on a beautiful bay, I’m about to find out.

And I do as squeals of delight ring out all around me and the sky blackens with the wing-wooshes of a billion bats flying just above my head.

***

Reading a book like this one, you might assume that the author loves all creatures. You might picture the author preparing to snuggle when a friend offers to let her hold their slinky (and stinky) ferret. You may imagine the author cheering when a mouse scurries across the kitchen floor. You might even believe that, were the author to come mask-to-pointy-face with a barracuda while snorkeling, she’d thank God for the glimpse of this glory.

But if that author in question were me, you’d be very wrong.

Of course, I do love all creatures—in theory. I am not, however, a fan of all of them. And while I’ve loved animals my whole life, two animals have completely, irrationally terrified me for as long as I can remember: bats and snakes. Whether it’s the stretched-leather wings or the long slow slither, or whether it’s the possibility of one getting tangled in my hair or crawling up my leg, the very thought of bats and snakes sends shivers.

Of course, sharks and jellyfish scare me when I’m swimming in the ocean (in all fairness, though, so does seaweed). I get nervous seeing alligator warning signs in Florida, especially when my kids step too near a pond. But I don’t recoil at pictures of sharks, jellyfish, or alligators, nor do I avoid looking at them behind enclosures. Were I to bumble into a lion while roaming the savanna, and were it to shake the trees with its growl and flash its bloodied teeth, I’m sure I’d be afraid. But somewhere, deep in my fantasies, I’m still convinced that my doggy-baby talk would lull the lion into passivity and allow me to snuggle up into its full mane.

As noted, neighborhood coyotes and foxes bring me great joy. Squirrels only scare me when they pop out of garbage cans (which actually happens fairly frequently). And like I said earlier, I am dangerously unafraid of all dogs. The ones I should be most nervous

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