The Curve in the Garden

I was ten years old the summer I first learned that fear can hiss.

We’d moved in early June, boxes still half-packed, to an old farmhouse on the edge of nowhere. My parents called it “a fresh start.” I called it “too far from anything fun.” There was no cable, no neighborhood kids, and barely enough cell signal for a text to squeak through if you stood on the back porch with your phone raised like a torch to the gods.

But what the place lacked in modern comforts, it made up for in land—acres of it, tangled and green and louder with life than I was used to. The backyard seemed endless, a tangle of blackberry brambles, tall grass, and the skeletal remains of a garden long surrendered to weeds. My mom, ever the hopeful romantic, said it was “just waiting to be reborn.” My dad, ever the realist, said it looked like work.

It was boredom that drove me to the garden. That, and the thrill of claiming something as my own. I chose the far corner, where the fence bowed inward and wild mint grew in thick mats. I imagined rows of vegetables, maybe a sunflower or two. I had a rusted trowel, a dented watering can, and the blind optimism only children and old poets seem to possess.

That’s where I met the snake.

I was clearing out a thick patch of weeds, digging deep where the soil was cool and damp, when I saw it—an elegant curve, dappled brown and gold, nestled half in shadow. My first thought was that it was a root or a stick. My second thought didn’t arrive, only a pulse of pure instinct—sharp, cold, ancestral. I froze.

It was perfectly still. Not coiled like a spring, just resting, as if the garden belonged to it and I was the visitor. Its eyes were unblinking, lidless and ancient. We stared at each other in the thick afternoon heat, the air between us heavy with pollen and stillness. I wasn’t afraid the way you’re afraid of the dark or a scary story. This was a different kind of fear—clean, electric, like touching the edge of something bigger than yourself.

And then, just like that, it slipped away. Not in a hurry. Not afraid. It moved like water made flesh, folding itself into the earth and vanishing beneath a clump of grass. I sat back hard, dirt on my hands, heart pounding like a fist on a door.

I didn’t tell my parents right away. Part of me didn’t want to. It felt like I’d been let in on a secret, like nature had whispered something to me and I hadn’t quite caught the words but understood the meaning anyway.

That evening, over dinner, I finally said, “I saw a snake in the garden.”

My father paused, mid-chew, and looked at me with a kind of gentle concern. “What kind?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It was brown. It didn’t do anything. Just… looked at me.”

He nodded. “Probably a rat snake. Not dangerous. Still, good to respect it.”

Respect it.

I remember repeating those words in my head like a spell.

In the days that followed, I kept going back to the garden. I worked more slowly now, more deliberately. I paid attention—to the rustling of leaves, the patterns in the dirt, the shifting shadow of a bird overhead. I cleared out enough space for a few tomato plants and some scraggly zucchini starts. I planted sunflowers along the fence, mostly because I liked how they turned their faces to the sky without shame.

But I always left one patch untouched—the place where I’d seen the snake. It wasn’t fear that made me leave it wild. It was reverence. That corner became something sacred, something outside the realm of chores or plans. I liked knowing that something untamed lived there, just beyond the edge of my garden.

Summer ripened and softened. The tomatoes came in small but sweet. The sunflowers grew taller than me. Once, I thought I saw the snake again—a flicker of movement in the tall grass at dusk. I didn’t approach. I didn’t need to.

Years later, when I returned home from college for the first time, the garden was overgrown again. My parents had let it go. Life had filled up with other things. But I walked back there, quietly, and found that corner still slightly clearer than the rest. The mint had taken over, fragrant and wild. I stood there for a long time, half-hoping, half-dreading I’d see that smooth curve again.

I didn’t. But the silence felt like a kind of answer.

That snake taught me something I hadn’t had words for at ten: that not everything in the world is meant to be tamed. That sometimes, the most meaningful encounters don’t leave scars or photos—just a change in the way you walk through the world.

To this day, I keep a little wild in every garden I plant.

Just in case something sacred needs the space.