a snake sheds its skin

An old friend and former biz partner owned a gigantic snake named Elsa.  I don't know what kind of snake Elsa is (was? how long do gigantic snakes live?).  I think Elsa might have been six feet long and, at her widest the approximate size of a large apple.  I can't 'think' in terms of circumference.   How many inches all the way around a very large apple?

If Elsa ate a mouse, which Lynn, my former biz partner, sometimes fed her, the lump of the mouse would bulge out as the mouse's body moved through Elsa being digested, gradually melting away until Elsa resumed her regular roundness. I guess the snake swallowed a mouse whole. Also, Elsa was not the same diameter all the way. She was thicker in the middle, with each end tapering. One end tapered to the end of her. The other end tapered to her face.

When I stayed with Lynn, who lived in Baltimore when we were partners -- I lived in Minneapolis then -- she put Elsa in her large glass 'cage'. Elsa's box was a very large aquarium.  When Lynn was home alone with Elsa, Elsa had the roam of the house.

During a visit, Elsa was shedding her skin. I had always known snakes shed their skin. Humans shed their skin, too, but it is not as clear-cut. Human skin sheds in microscopic flakes, something that happens steadily all over the body.  I guess all living organisms change steadily, growing and dying simultaneously.  I have not had a science class since my high school biology class. I never even took chemistry, which I regret. Chemistry was not required for most colleges or for my graduation.

I never felt any draw to study science, although I find myself increasingly interested in understanding some science.  We have all, I bet, heard one kid or another complain that many of the things they are asked to learn in school are useless in life.  This is not true, of course. As I age, I find myself often wishing I knew more about science. Nothing prevents me from learning and I think I will undertake some study of science.  This post is not about my academic regrets, which might be a topic for another day.

Watching Elsa literally slink and slide out of her old skin, seeing her new skin emerge, penetrated me. I watched her for hours at a time. Her movement out of her old skin, emerging into her new one, was glacial.  Her skin was made up of an endless number of tiny flakes. The dead cells were dried flakes. The new skin wet, alive, moving. Some flecks of the old skin became light flakes that might be moved with air movement, but the bulk of her old skin retained the form of the snake.

Anyone who is into reptiles has seen snakes shed their skin, I guess.  My observation of Elsa's shedding was not special or unique. But it is special to me, unique in my experience.

Humans don't just shed skin. I bet all of my body sheds old cells and steadily grow new ones.  My heart does not retain any of the actual, physical cells that I was born with.  The tiny pancreas baby Tree had on August 16, 1953 is the same pancreas in my body today, but all the cells in today's pancreas are new.

Life is so amazing, isn't it?

Just as physical matter changes constantly, my being constantly changes.  I change how I go about being me.

I have shed lots of people as I have moved through life. And people have shed me.  I know this is life, growing and changing is life.  I know it is right.

I wish it did not hurt so much to be shed by someone I love.