I like to jot down poems, or song lyrics, or quotes that seem pithy or meaningful, or that might be useful in some future situation. Sometimes they can originate from a novel, or television, or even just hearsay, but the source is not important: it’s whether the words and/or possible intent or portent resonate with me at a particular time that is note-worthy, if only to me. I have a computer file I keep for such things, and I add to it when inspiration strikes. One such gem presented itself to me several years ago, when I was reading “House of Sand and Fog,” by Andre Dubus III.

“If there is no snake at your feet, do not lift up the rocks at the side of the road.”

Taken out of the context of the novel, this innocent grouping of words might be the insight one would gain from within the fragile confines of a fortune cookie, or glean from a weighty tome of collected Taoist wisdom, or could also simply be a sweet and yet somewhat vaguely sinister little tidbit your sweet granny shared with you when you were a child. Whatever the origin, the time one can recall the words and insert them successfully into a conversation may just mean that heads turn and eyebrows raise and, when done successfully, gives just a glimmer of satisfaction that all your time geeking out with a book in your hand has not been squandered.

I used this particular one once at work not that long ago, and did indeed get a few brows arched in my direction, despite the fact that it was entirely appropriate to the conversation and setting. It wasn’t my first incident by the proverbial water cooler, so I didn’t feel too bad and, indeed, did get that little frisson of word-nerd victory. It’s the little things in life, after all.

During the past few weeks while driving my car, I must admit that I’ve glanced down at my feet a few times after hearing the story of the woman who was confronted by a snake in her car – because one just gets a sense that a snake will be crawling out from underneath the driver’s seat, not just coiled calmly and serenely in the passenger seat, waiting to go wherever it is a snake in your car wants to go. Petco? The park? Al Biernat’s on a Thursday?

I have also been busy trying to offset this downward vision by looking at other drivers, because within the past few weeks I’ve had what feels like a remarkable instance of near-crashes with cars whose drivers were apparently suffering from some version of: a) unawareness that they were making a left turn from the center lane; or, b) obliviousness to the fact that they were changing lanes while their back bumper was still far too perilously aligned to the front bumper of mine; or, c) conscious or unconscious ignorance of the road sign indicating that the left lane was a left-turn-only lane, and not a fast-break to the freeway on-ramp.

Maybe life is just a delicate balance of skipping across the rocks beneath your feet – whether or not the requisite snake is dwelling beneath – and looking up often enough to evade the other people who might be panicking from their own snake-in-a-car scenario.