Occupy 11-11-11

        Years ago when Caroline and I moved to Tuxedo Park,we visited an out-building (an old disused garage) on my mother’s property wherewe had stored some of our possessions after leaving our airy loft in Brooklyn Heightsfor a smaller apartment in Manhattan. Keeping things there seemed like a good idea atthe time, but the space wasn’t perfectlyweather-tight and the atmosphere eventually turned our possessions (a Danishteak desk my parents bought for my brother and me when we were children; some vinyl lps; old clothes and other items Ishould have, but hadn’t, discarded) into an interesting sort of compost.

        Tuxedo Park has a large and diverse snake population,including poisonous specimens such as copperheads and rattlers.  You need to remember this and cross tall-grassareas carefully.  Surprises lurk thereand it isn't uncommon to see sizable serpents crossing (and during summersleeping on) our roads.  

        I don’t remember whether we were looking for anything particularthat day or just doing a general inventory, but Caroline glanced down at one point, then up, having turned white as a sheet, which on her is really disturbing.  At her feet was a long something I didn’timmediately recognize, but which looked like varicolored tissue paper or,perhaps, ladies’ stockings.  Clearly stunned (but confident in her conclusion -- she is like that),she posited that the object was a freshly-shed rattlesnake skin.  Schooling and the Discovery Channel persuaded me that she was correct and it was only a short leap to the inevitablequestion, “If that’s true, where is the rattlesnake?”

     I remember immediately running from the garage back acrossthe meadow toward my mother’s house and also feeling a burning shock on myshoulder before we were out the door.   Laterthat afternoon when we went out to jog, I felt queasily light-headed and my thoughtswere distorted, rapid and incoherent.  Iwas looking forward to running, but I couldn’t take more than a few stepsbecause my legs felt heavy and the arm where I was bitten was flushed and veryoddly swollen.  (Imagine Francis Baconsculpting a human arm.)   My not-very-bright, but crystal-clear thought, shared with my wife, was that I was turning into the Incredible Hulk.

       Vodka and valium homeopathy didn't abate my symptoms and eventuallywe learned that I had suffered a spider bite, not uncommon in Orange County, NewYork, but something we hadn’t consideredbecause it was a totally outside our experience.

        Today I “Occupy11-11-11” and have decided to shed my old skin, which seems like a good idea.  

        But I’m mindful of the fact that I never actually saw the snakewho turned over a new leaf by losing and leaving his skin. 

        Did he have a good day that day somewhere else or did he merely disappear, trusting no forwarding address to the spider he managed to avoid?

Note:   Illustration No. 5 is Jasper Francis Cropsey, Autumn Landscape, Sugarloaf Mountain, Orange County, New York, 1870