I am a Turtle
by Maggie Hess
a short essay for Randall Roberts
Mom says that after turtles mate they cannot be transplanted away from their home or they will not survive. Turtles walk slow and move slow and their thought processes are slow, but deep. Mythology says that turtles hold the world on their backs. Turtles also carry shells on their backs and many can close their shells. Sea turtles do spend a large part of the year out in the ocean catching their food, but they have to nest in the same spot every year or their children die and they die. Turtles can eat under water though it puzzled Mom to think about exactly how. After all, like humans, they have lungs and need not breathe water into these lungs.
I have been drawn to turtles lately, to look at the box turtle shells that I find, to dig out my sister's collection of turtle things, because she too once was fascinated with turtles. Turtles seem a gentle bunch but not when you find you are some turtle's lunch. Around here there are snapping turtles, but all turtles snap as a way of getting food. Turtles are very good at biting into something they like and refusing to let go. I remember my family used to stop when we saw a turtle crossing a road and aware that people intentionally run over them, we moved them across the street in the direction they were going. Now scientific research suggests that any disturbance of a turtle's natural way could be detrimental to the life of the turtle. Moving turtles off the road disorients them. Turtles know where they are going deep inside, they don't need the opinion of others affecting them. Turtles like to spend time alone enjoying the comforts of the forbidden gardens they find, munching on heirloom tomatoes.
I see less turtles than I used to. That is why I am writing this. Turtles and people who love them seem at first to be endangered and problems in the environment do threaten them. But deep inside their shells, a turtle soul is a hopeful soul. And that is why I am a turtle.