Snails Run for Love: A Sensual Interlude from the Symphony of Evolution

A rare and rapturous glimpse of the slow double embrace by which some of Earth’s tenderest creatures make more of themselves.

In February 2018, I found myself on a friend’s fruit farm in Kauai, having gratefully escaped the short bleak days of Brooklyn winter to finish Figuring. Each day, being a creature of loops and routines, I did my daily sprints along the exact same stretch of gravel by a blooming grapefruit tree on the edge of the farm.

One morning, just before Valentine’s Day, I halted...