The Homes We Carry with Us

Lessons from an Ammonite Fossil

It started as a joke. Having attended some kind of social function, I texted my friend, “And now I’m going back in my snail shell.” We’ve long bonded over our highly sensitive introversion and our need to recover from big events, even though we deeply love and value meaningful connection with others.

I wondered if there might be such a thing as a snail shell necklace that I could get her for Christmas, so I casually typed it into the Etsy search bar. And dozens of ammonite fossils showed up. I was stunned by them.

I hadn’t really heard of an ammonite (or at least maybe I wasn’t paying attention that day in biology: highly likely), but they weren’t snails. They were cephalopods, and they built their homes cell by cell, twisting around in a spiral that reminded Pliny the Elder of a ram’s horn.

I marveled at the beauty of these fossils, and then I thought about how, yes, we like to stay cozily curled up within ourselves, my friend and I. But within ourselves are many rooms. I thought about how these fossils may have looked like ordinary rocks until someone sliced them open to reveal these magnificent chambers, laid out like a tiny labyrinth.

I thought about how these tiny little fossils were icons of a rich interior life.

I bought one for her, and I bought one for me. And I wondered if this was how Oliver Wendell Homes felt when he wrote “The Chambered Nautilus.”

Because the mystery of it just hasn’t dimmed for me, the way these creatures built their homes and carried them on their backs. The way they kept crafting new structures to accommodate their growth, doubling back on the old ones.

Think of all the selves you’ve been. Think of all the places where you have felt at home, especially the ones you’ve created yourself. Think of all the ways you have welcomed your own growth.

You carry them all with you, your own sacred relics.

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A Few Hopeful Things:

-I won’t bury the lede, THE CROCUSES ARE BLOOMING, and just in time for St. Brigid’s Day and Candlemas. Long have I waited for them to pop up their butter-yellow and deep purple little heads. The duty of delight isn’t difficult when these miniature fireworks are exploding out of the earth.

-It appears that Lent is almost upon us (I kind of love it when we get the Ash Wednesday/Valentine’s Day mashup), but fear not, Christine Valters Paintner has a new book out called A Different Kind of Fast: Feeding Our True Hungers in Lent, and doesn’t that title just do it for you? The first printing sold out, but there should be more on the way.

-Also! I’ve been following along as Alessandra Harris has been writing her book In the Shadow of Freedom: The Enduring Call for Racial Justice, and it’s now available for pre-order! Alessandra is such a gifted writer, and I’m so grateful for ver voice and her good work.

Building expansive new chambers with you,
Cameron