- My husband works with snakes, and I am absolutely terrified of them.
- I don't want to pass my fear onto our two kids.
- I've been getting exposed to snakes through him and have learned to appreciate them from afar.
My partner, Derek, is a snake guy — a herpetologist. We moved to Maine a decade ago when he got a job as a state wildlife biologist. He gets called if someone says they saw a cobra in a field (they did — it was a toy). Or a giant African spur-thighed tortoise marching along a road. Or to make a statement about Wessie, an elusive escaped python. He appears in uniform on the news sometimes, referring to children as small mammals. He is an expert.
I, however, am afraid of snakes. It's an evolutionary reflex, not a choice. I respect snakes and their ecological significance, but my subconscious reads them as the stuff of nightmares — recurring nightmares. A night terror featuring snakes once caused me to hurl myself out of bed and into a wall to escape them. I woke up covered in bruises.
He's slowly been exposing me to snakes
While Derek gathered early on in our relationship that I'm not very keen on interacting with snakes, he's remained gently enthusiastic about informal exposure therapy. We both love being outside though our eyes travel to different places. Much of Derek's time outside is spent turning over rocks, logs, and boards to see who is underneath.
When we first moved to Maine — before we had small mammals of our own — we did a lot of hiking. Derek picked up an Eastern milk snake on top of a mountain and offered them to me. I declined but appreciated the opportunity to marvel at their checkered underbelly. On our honeymoon in Trinidad, I watched as Derek coaxed a tree boa from the branches of a mangrove into his arms in the dark of night. I managed to touch their cool skin. While I quickly recoiled, the greater sensation I experienced was admiration and awe for Derek's oneness with the serpentine.
I don't want to pass my fear to our kids
We have two children now, and I take care not to pass my fears on to them, partially as a thought experiment and partially out of respect. I tolerate Slither, the garter snake who resides in our living room. Derek tolerates my desire not to have a house full of snakes, even though it would be helpful for him to have more on hand for research. Recently, Derek and his childhood friend won a genius prize for an AI-based smart-trapping system they developed for invasive species. No doubt, as their business grows, snakes will only feature more prominently in our pillow talk.
Derek notes that I have a real knack for finding "barely discernible two-dimensional road-kill snakes." I made him jealous once when I spotted a dead cloudy snail eater. On our road, I sometimes find flattened red-bellied snakes. While live snakes are best, dead snakes, in the vernacular of our relationship, have a certain amount of cache. Derek has devoted many years of his life to reconnecting habitat to prevent animals from becoming roadkill. If he's not with me, I send him pictures. I've come to learn that biologists like scale, so next to a graying garter snake, I lay my hand, sporting a double-diamond ring in a swirling 90s setting that once belonged to Derek's grandmother. This proximity is voluntary.
Under the hashtag #DerekPutItDown I've curated a series of photos of Derek holding various animals. A giant snapping turtle in a swamp. A fallen phoebe. An armful of writhing black racers. A merlin that had gotten trapped on our porch. A baby ring-necked snake wrapped around his pinky. Me.
Ever the scientist, Derek feels it's important to stick to the facts. "What do you like about me?" I asked him recently.
"You're not a snake," he said with a smile.