The Return to Stillness

All day, something felt off.

Not wrong. Just off.

Like trying to breathe through someone else’s lungs. Like walls a little too close to my skin.

The rhythm had shifted, new energy, new objects, new vibration.

Not bad. Not unwelcome. Just loud.

And not loud in sound, loud in presence.

That’s the kind of thing people miss.

They see a room.

I feel a pressure system.

They see family.

I feel displacement layered in love.

This isn’t about resistance.

This is about resonance.

I can make space for others. I do.

But I’m wired to feel every molecule they bring with them.

Even the invisible ones.

And that’s when I noticed him.

Kismet, moving like I was feeling.

Restless. Watchful.

Slow and steady, but not at ease.

I had changed things in his enclosure, added a new pieces of driftwood, shifted a few items.

We call it enrichment.

He calls it inspection.

Every time I rearrange, he maps.

He checks every corner like he’s drawing new blueprints with his body.

But tonight, he didn’t stop.

He stayed out longer than usual.

Periscoped more.

Traced the top of the enclosure with the tip of his nose like he was testing for cracks in the universe.

And I knew that behavior.

I know what it is to check the edges of a room that feels wrong.

To scan for the reason your body is humming, even when your mind says, it’s fine.

To not be afraid, but not be able to settle, either.

At first, I thought it was the object on top of his enclosure too close to his sky.

Snakes know that predators come from above.

Even a plastic box can feel like a talon if you don’t understand the shape.

So I moved it.

He didn’t stop.

But I did.

Slightly.

Later, while my grandson was in the tub and the house exhaled just enough for me to breathe I saw it.

The massive baby seat.

Right in front of his enclosure.

Bright colors. Strange shapes. Towering.

A sentinel.

A shape too large for his mapped memory.

And suddenly, it made sense.

I moved the seat.

And not long after that, he disappeared quietly, without fanfare into his hide.

No panic. No flurry.

Just… the return to stillness.

And then I realized, I was doing the same.

My breath dropped.

The knot in my stomach let go.

The house, which had felt too small all day, suddenly felt expansive again.

The walls returned to where they belonged.

We had both been waiting.

Not for silence, but for safety.

Not for things to stop, but for them to make sense again.

Stillness is not passive.

It is an act.

A reclamation.

A response to chaos that says, I survived it. Now I will rest.

We don’t arrive calm.

We build calm.

One adjustment at a time.

Most people don’t see the link between the woman and the snake.

They see an enclosure.

They don’t see the ritual.

They see pacing.

They don’t see mapping.

They see someone “sensitive.”

They don’t understand that what we call sensitivity is information saturation.

My system is tuned to the frequency of threat and grace.

So is his.

We are both designed to retreat not out of fear but out of wisdom.

We do not run.

We withdraw.

We coil.

We breathe.

Kismet is not my pet.

He is my reminder.

That nothing is “just” enrichment.

That stillness is not luxury. It is medicine.

Tonight wasn’t about a snake reacting to a seat.

It was about a being teaching me, again,

that safety is something we feel first in our gut,

then in our bones,

and finally, if we’re lucky, in our breath.

He returned to the dark.

And I followed him in.