{Personal Essay} The Rattlesnake Skin

The Rattlesnake Skin

My mom has always been different from other moms. It’s hard to sum up why, or how, but suffice it to say that where I grew up, in the minivan-ridden suburbs of Atlanta, she didn’t fit in.

My friends’ moms wore tennis skirts and clothes from Gap, and my mom wore thrift store finds, flowery skirts, and clothing that hinted at her hippie days. My friend’s moms hosted bible studies, or went to neighborhood potlucks on a regular basis, and my mom couldn’t think of anything worse. While everyone else put out signs for local Republican candidates in their yards, my mom put out a “War is Not the Answer” sign.

If it weren’t for her kids, who were trying desperately—and succeeding, I might add—to fit in with their suburban surroundings, she might have been forced out of the community and moved away, but for our sake, she held on.

When I was in 6th grade, we were on a family trip to the mountains. Coming back from a hike, driving along a dirt road in the country, we came across a huge dead snake lying off to the side of the road: it was roadkill, and it was a rattlesnake with a huge rattle and a big diamond-shaped head.  

It was scary—even from the window of the car—and although I begged her not to stop, my mom stopped the car and got out to look at it. She wanted all of us to take a look because nature is incredible and beautiful and the snake was so mesmerizing and all of that kind of stuff.

I think I may have remained in the car, although my memory of the situation might be inaccurate all of these years later, but what I do know is that after much arguing on my part—“Mom, what are you thinking? That’s disgusting!”—my mom cut off the snake’s head with her fingernail scissors (the only thing that she had handy), and decided to bring the dead snake home with us, in our cooler, which previously sat empty in the trunk.

Why, you might ask? Why would a suburban mother of three bring a dead snake home with her? Oh, simply because she wanted to skin it. You know, because it was so beautiful.

And skin it, she did. Then she laid it out on a piece of plywood, hammered the ends of the skin into the wood, and left it in the basement to dry out.

In high school, my best friend would come home from school to find new outfits, new accessories, new shoes lying on her bed, all gifts that her mom had purchased for her while out shopping during the day. I would gaze longingly at all of her cute new clothes, wishing my mom had the trendy taste, the interest, or the money, for that matter, to buy me new clothes while I was at school.

I was always jealous of how well her mom fit in, of how her mom’s outfits and makeup was always just right, of how her mom wasn’t different like mine.

But, as we all know, if there’s one thing you cannot change in life, it’s your parents.

After my freshman year of college, I came home hauling all of my belongings in bags and boxes, slightly resentful of having to leave my independence and return home for the summer, ready to reclaim my little space in the house by unpacking my life and stuffing all of my college secrets into my 12’ x 15’ room.

I lugged a few items upstairs, walked around the corner, and opened my door to find an item from my mom, sitting on the bed.

It was the rattlesnake skin.

I screamed. Horrified, “Mooooommmmmmmm! What is this nasty thing doing on my bed?!?!?!”

“I didn’t want the dogs to get it,” she replied flippantly, “And your door is always closed. “ I could not escape my mother’s weirdness.

Having just returned from college, where, for the first time in my life, I was able to define myself without my parents being a part of that definition, I had re-entered my mother’s domain, where snakeskins were a part of the décor.

The rattlesnake skin now hangs proudly on the wall in my mom’s bedroom, which is also full of my art from college, ancient artifacts and fossils that her father collected on his many trips to Mexico, and photographs of my mother and her children, which are her most prized possessions—much more important to her than a Gap outfit, a tennis racket, or a neighborhood cookout.

Recently, when walking on the beach near our new home on the Cape, my husband had to yell at me, over and over again, to stop lagging behind to pick up rocks. He couldn’t understand my fascination with the smooth edges, the unique colors, the perfect shapes created by nature.

On a recent walk with my dog, I picked up a piece of driftwood and lugged it back to the car, carrying it for the next 20 minutes—wet and sandy—because I found it beautiful and want to do a painting on it. It’s currently drying out in my studio, and I’m saving it for the perfect stroke of inspiration.

Although I know that I would never bring home a rattlesnake in a cooler, I’m starting to see that I may not be so different from my weird mom after all.

As I grow older, I’m starting to understand that we all have our own quirky rattlesnake skins in our basements, drying on a piece of plywood and waiting for the perfect chance to be revealed.