The sound of a wild snail eating

by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

http://www.books.com.tw/products/0010549750 
《蝸牛教我慢慢活》

我們為何要欣賞一隻蝸牛？

蝸牛，行動慢慢的，安靜得不得了，不會用可愛的大眼睛向你乞憐，更不會跑到你腳邊磨蹭撒嬌，以寵物來說，這是一種奇怪的選擇，但本書作者卻在與蝸牛共處的時光中找到意義。

從蝸牛的悠然自得，我們看見另一條人生的可能性。

某年作者生了一場找不出原因的重病，導致嚴重神經病變，甚至到了無法自由行動的地步。

為了方便療養，她遠離家人，遠離社會，搬到有專人照料的居所。有天，友人送來一隻小蝸牛給她做伴。

5公分長的小小蝸牛優雅地在背上頂著棕殼，充滿自信地緩緩移動，四處張看；
餓了就默默地，以難以察覺的速度吃著枯萎的花瓣，富含鈣質的蛋殼是牠的最愛；
找不到東西吃，就吃床頭旁的信紙；
渴了就伸長頸子，在花盆底盤緩緩喝著水；
牠動作神秘流暢，期待地伸出觸角，如同太極拳大師一般滑動著。

透過陪伴，找到心靈的療癒方向。

小小蝸牛如此自得其樂的生活方式，平靜了作者因病而苦的心靈，思考許多人類存在的意義，也讓她發現原來彼此是如此相近──

蝸牛困於自己小小的殼中，原本可以自由活動的她也困於病床和這個小小的房子裡；蝸牛平日喜歡躲在隱密處藏匿著，而她就像蝸牛縮進殼中一般，與外界隔絕。

回想起有蝸牛陪伴的時光，作者心懷感激，學會從不同的角度看待自己的處境，更能樂觀面對各種困難與問題。


Excerpt from the book:

Try to love the questions themselves as if the were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.

Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

-Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903, form Letters to a young poet, 1927

……

While illness keeps me always aware of my mortality, I realize that what matters most is not that I survive, nor even that my species survives, but that life itself continues to evolve. As the Holocene mass extinction rushes on, which species will be left? And what new creatures will evolve that we cannot now imagine — for what creature could ever have imagined us?

At the moment, we humans are lucky to co-inhabit the earth with mollusks, even if we are a recent presence in their much longer history. I hope the terrestrial snails, secreted away in their burrows by day across the earth’s vast landscapes, will continue their mysterious lives, gliding slowly and gracefully through the night, millions of years into the future.