Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Terrapins - Part Three

For some reason I call the turtle Pilgrim. Well, I insist on bringing him into the house and cooling him down just a bit as his shell was almost too hot to touch! (It was one of those over 100 degree days here in lovely central Texas.) I bring Pilgrim in and put him on my pool table cover. Get him a saucer of water and a dripping wet hand towel which I take and tenderly try and wash down his shell. I see he has a 2 inch crack on one side and several places where it almost looks like someone went at him with a belt sander. This fella! The tales he could tell! I start to feel happy and lighter while I am working with this animal. All my blue funk just gets lighter and happier. The turtle warms up to me pretty quickly and Pilgrim loves for some weird reason to hear me laugh and to hear me talking on the phone. When I do these two things he will crane his neck up as far as he can from his shell. This must be a very curious turtle! I know I probably imagined it being real communication, but when I would bob my head up and down at him, he would do the same kind of bobble head back at me! And if I tilted my head right, he would tilt his left. I think my husband was worried a bit that I had gone off the deep end with how I was playing with this turtle! I know he was worried that I was going to beg to keep Pilgrim. He was correct there. I did ask, but only half heartedly as I assumed he would be better back with his own kind. So I called our local WildLife Rescue and made an appt to take Pilgrim in the next day. Then I put him in a sturdy box with another dish of water and with the wet towel in the corner.

I started wondering at what meanings there might be for this critter entering our lives as he did. I know that some folks believe that everything is random and coincidence, and there might be truth to that. I just find life more interesting if I entertain the possibility that there are no accidents and so I got on line and looked up turtle meanings and symbolism. The bottom line for me was that Turtles have a lot in common with me. I am the Astrological symbol Cancer and Turtles have very crab-like similarities. Then there is the whole Atlas Mythology associated with them! How cool is that? Pilgrim Atlas! I wonder if maybe, just maybe my Native American ancestors were Turtle People! What I think was the lesson to learn here was let go of some things to be able to reach for the next one. Some how, finding Pilgrim helped me to be ok with saying goodbye to my old car and also helped me to say goodbye to my Terrapin singer, Syd Barrett. And also maybe just maybe it is helping me say goodbye to other bits I need to bid farewell.

2 comments:

Pelagian Poet said...

Beautifully said. Nice philosophy. I don't believe much in coincidences either--unless it suits me!

Annie-go-lightly said...

Well thank you! I believe in a lot of things that don't suit me --- probably because of my Southern Baptist upbringing.

;-)