An encounter with nature

Like every girl who has ever been close to nature, I have always had a fondness for animals, even the ones I did not quite understand. I am sure there are people out there who would be delighted with a pet rat in a storybook, but draw away in fear if they were to encounter the real thing. I know this because I am one of them. Living in Florida you begin to expect encounters with various creatures. A wide variety of insects that somehow manage to creep their way into your house; snakes in the pool, or even raccoons camping out in your trashcan. So it might not surprise the average Floridian to find a baby turtle waddling along on a sidewalk, but to my adolescent eyes it appeared to be something unusual. Something I was missing or slowly giving up as a result of our fast paced world. This baby turtle was the essence of nature and finding it brought me back to a place in time where I could calmly sit back and observe nature with everything it had to offer.

The morning was bright and humid the day I found Morton. Or maybe it was just the perspiration that seeped from my skin as my mother and I staggered away through an early morning power walk a few miles outside our neighborhood. We were playing a word game, trying to keep our minds off our slight discomfort. My hips were getting stiff from our long strides. From a distance I could see a small object about the size of a quarter crawling on the sidewalk. In fact, it looked exactly like a quarter covered in grime, but quarters do not walk.

When my mother and I were close enough to realize the quarter was in fact a baby turtle, our hearts turned in adoration for one of mother natures own. It was the cutest thing I had ever seen and yet I still did not believe it was real. This baby turtle could not have been more than a few days old, but it already possessed such feistiness and determination. It looked as though it was on a journey. Yet I wondered if it really knew where it was going because it was heading straight for the road. Reasoning with my mother, I told her that if we did not take this baby turtle home with us it would become miniature road kill.

My mother agreed with me that we ought to save this turtle from such a tragic death but she was not too sure about keeping it. After all we knew nothing about turtles except for the fact that we had seen many in our lives though none so small and helpless as this one. My mother told me turtles represent good luck. I assured her that if turtles represented good luck she was letting her luck get away, so she said that if I could pick it up and carry it home, we would care for it the best way we could. The only problem with this idea was that for being cute, small and helpless, the turtle was still a turtle and I was somewhat afraid of it. I was unsure about letting this little creature crawl into my hands with its tiny webbed feet, and that tiny orifice at the end of its body that could freely dispose of wastes at any given moment. I remembered they called it a cloaca in Science class.

Being the wonderful woman my mother was she offered to give me the hat off her head to scoop up the turtle. Or rather it was I being the persistent daughter I was that persuaded my mother into giving up her hat. Even with the hat I still squirmed with the idea of picking up the turtle so I stood there and watched my mother do it for me. Because it is nearly impossible to determine the sex of a turtle until after a year or so, I did not know whether this turtle was a male or female though I ssumed it was a male and named it Morton because Morton sounded like a fine name for a turtle.

Two miles and two puddles of sweat later, my mother and I arrived at our house. We placed Morton in my mother’s bathroom sink filled with a little water and threw in a few small stones from my mother’s fountain display in the living room. I could tell Morton was anxious and that he did not like his confinements. So we purchased a temporary amphibian tank for him and some turtle pellets from the pet store. Slowly Morton began to grow in size and he needed a bigger confinement. Morton’s next home was a large Rubbermaid storage container decorated with rocks and aquarium plants that did not last very long because Morton became fond of aquarium plants. He grew from a quarter size, to a silver dollar, a chocolate chip cookie, then eventually a compact disk.

Every day I would awake to find this creature making the best of his surroundings. Everyday I would take a few minutes to observe him. He entranced me. Morton was very expressive and would shrink back in fear when I approached his container. I knew he did not like me. I guess he was afraid of me because I was his prison guard. Fear was what we had in common. Sometimes he would bite me if given the opportunity to do so. It took Morton a whole month before he would actually look at me, and those big eyes of his said a lot.

I knew that people kept turtles like Morton as pets all the time and Morton was no different. He was an ordinary red-eared slider a “dime-store turtle” as they were once called back in the day when pet stores used to carry them. However, one
day it dawned on me that Morton was not a domesticated turtle like I had wanted
him to be. He was a wild turtle smuggled from nature and forced into confinement. He had no friends, no mate, and no purpose living in a Rubbermaid storage container. His only desire was to escape and that was how he spent every waking day. Morton had a journey and I was keeping him from it. I was trying to protect him from danger like an overprotective parent by not setting him free. I was prolonging his life into meaningless days. Surely he would die a tragic death if I let him go on the way he did. My heart snapped into a million pieces. I could not remember a time I had ever been so selfish. Slowly I picked up Morton and transferred him to his original amphibian tank. It was time.

I will never forget the day I set Morton free. I walked to the neighborhood lake with his tank wrapped in my arms then carefully placed him on the shore. “Go on Morton you are free now,” I said with a somewhat shaky voice. Morton did not hesitate to swim into the lake. He swam around for a while, then went underwater a minute and came right back up. Morton raised his head in my direction and winked at me with those big eyes of his. Turning from my direction he went back under water and that was the last I ever saw of him. A tear dropped from my eye then a smile appeared on my face. For the first time we understood each other.

Whether or not Morton ever survived in the real world that was his lake, I knew he would make his journey. He became a part of nature again and he would live his life in a wholesome way. Morton was the essence of nature and finding him brought me back to a place in time where I could calmly sit back and observe nature with everything it had to offer.