snail girl spring in honor of my very dear friend @moss-mylk🌷🌱🐌 May is ME/CFS awareness month 💙

this book is so lovely. it's about snails, but it's not just about snails. Bailey's beautiful writing encourages us to slow down, observe the world around us, and to reflect and sit with the idea of time and what we do with it.

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is a poignant picture of what it's like to live with chronic illness and disability. when your world is reduced to one room, one bed, and the grief of your body, you are forced to find connection to humanity in ways that otherwise would have felt too small to be significant. the sun reflecting on the walls, the flowers blooming outside your window, and in Bailey's case, the tiny, otherwise imperceptible sounds of a snail friend munching on dried violet petals.

the isolating and confusing existence of disability, especially the uniquely exhausting experience of ME/CFS, being compared to a snail plucked from its habitat and learning to exist, to survive, and to create life again is so deeply moving. there's so many parallels not only to ME/CFS but disability as a whole, including neurodivergence and autism. i smiled, i laughed, i cried, and i remembered that it's the little things that make life worth living.

i recommend this book to anyone and everyone, not only those who struggle with disability or chronic illness, but also caregivers and those who love someone with a disability. it can be hard for those outside of disability to understand what it's like, and Bailey does such a great job zeroing in on and highlighting the necessarily slow, minimalized, and precarious existence of disability. just simply lovely and so full of care.