On a recent mild May morning, I received a gift from the woods. A real gift.
While the clouds played games with the sun overhead, my dog and I took a walk along pathways near my house. All about me were signs of burgeoning spring: intermittent bird song, the swelling buds of sassafras, and the tender brand-new leaves of oaks, maples, and beeches, although the Beeches are failing. My mood matched the day, mild and low-key. It is hard to put into words, but I was allowing the calm without to become the calm within. I was walking in that state of mind in which not a great deal was going on; automatic pilot, you might say — not so much observing as being part of the natural world around me. My eyes were mostly cast downward, with the emerging Canada Mayflowers and Star Flowers, the unfolding fiddleheads of ferns, and the little bell-blossoms on the bearberry and blueberry plants.
Even this damaged world, I thought, still offers up these delicate treasures to keep us going; there is a strength and resilience in nature to match its fragile beauty.
Then, in a small patch of sunlight my gift was revealed: a box turtle! Her domed shell of burnished gold interlaced with black margins seemed perfectly matched to the spot, nestled as she was in a bed of old leaves, pine needles and bearberry. My heart soared. I could not imagine anything more beautiful.
Turtles and tortoises always project an aura of history, of longevity, of a kinship with horseshoe crabs and those long-vanished species like dinosaurs. But here she was in the here-and-now, perfectly content to be where she was, soaking up the sun. I think she was aware of my presence, but I can’t say why: she simply stayed put and waited me out. The patience of turtles is legend; they make the slow mode of life seem very attractive. Their plodding step-by-step approach has served them well for eons. They remind me — as all wildlife does — that there is another way of being.
What a happy discovery — and not an everyday one either. These mild and inoffensive creatures have taken the brunt of our housing projects, our roads and highways: I have seen as many crushed as alive in recent years. I also know that they are tied to their specific habitats and will spend their entire lives – long lives at that- in the same area. (That’s why they should not be removed from where they are found, even if it seems like a good idea to a would-be rescuer.) They are naturally so few and far between that females have evolved the ability to store sperm for more than a year: a natural solution to a poor social life. Now I must assume that their numbers are even fewer and their spacing even farther. I wonder if there is an available mate for the animal I am observing.
At any rate, I wished her well. I said to her, as I say to the whale, to the osprey, to the lady slipper: thank you for being here. Thank you for making this world a richer place. Thank you for reminding me that the other-than-human is real, primal, and important.
