When Nick Love asked me to blog, he said “please.” So you can blame him, if you hate this. If you love it, you can blame me, but give him like a high five or something, yeah?
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My name is George, and I am a turtle.
I come from a small pond in Georgia (something my grandma always used to say, like it was the first line of some sort of epic poem or something, George was born in a small pond in Georgia, bound for ginormous things, but I was so small, then, and grandma was so old already, and she didn’t know anything about me, not really, so it was wrong of her to tell me things like that, to make almost-promises about greatness when she couldn’t actually promise me ginormous anything, when she wouldn’t even live to see my first shell-shute shed), and people have kind of made a joke about “George from Georgia,” since I was very young, so it doesn’t actually bother me.
That’s just me. I’m George from Georgia.
I have four brothers (Cameron, Nigel, Donald, Rupert) and one sister (Emilie), and both of my parents are still alive, which is rare, here. Our neighbors say all the time how lucky we are that raccoons or bears or one of the big hawks haven’t got them, or any of us, though it’s been a close thing. That’s how Cameron lost his leg, before I was even born. To hear Cam tell it, you’d think he turned into a dragon and fought the thing off in a blaze of glory (but he was just a baby, so I think the bird was just having an off day).
I don’t have many hobbies, but that’s kind of typical for being a turtle. At least, it’s typical of every other turtle, and every other turtle seems to be okay with it (I’d say I’m okay with it, but I don’t like to lie, and actually, that’s a lie, because I may not particularly enjoy lying, but I seem to do it a lot, if only to save face for being the only turtle I know who is actually not okay with having next to no hobbies), because the daily routine all of my life has pretty much been to wade in the pond, eat some water striders, and then meditate on the shore with the family, a practice often mistaken for sunbathing, (but that’s a lizard thing, okay, get it right (and even if I was “okay” with having no hobbies, excuse me if “okay” doesn’t really get my shell shiny, alright, excuse me if I want something a little more out of life than “okay,” something like “good” or “nice,” or at least “honest” instead of the constant lying about being content with whatever it is every other turtle I know is okay with), anyway), sunbathing is just not a thing that turtles do. Like racing. Or aerobics. Or singing.
See, here’s the thing. I really, really like to sing.
When I was four, Nigel and Cam snuck out in the middle of the night to go meet the Shelly sisters and a couple of their friends on the South side of the pond. I didn’t go with them, of course, (“Get chewed, George,” Nigel had snickered, “I’m pretty sure Annie Shelly ain’t interested in babysitting, tonight,”) and they laughed with each other as they crawled away through the wet roots of the shrub-canopy, Cam’s pronounced limp still more swagger than handicap.
Still, the way was clear. They’d managed to go without waking mom or dad. Emilie hadn’t seen us leave. Donny and Rupert were too busy having a staring contest to care what anyone else was doing (always in their own world, they say it’s a twin thing, but I think they might just be kind of dense). I’d never been allowed outside at night, and the pond was smooth white and blue-green. Mossy water with moon speckled across it, prickled stars and swirling navy clouds mirrored with just enough imperfection in the careful, quiet current to say, I am not a pond, I am your very life, and you may have me to the fullest if you wish so.
Why would I not have taken the chance?
I began going the opposite direction of my brothers. I was only four, but I knew better than to get myself lost, and following the shoreline was the surest way to know I could find my way back before anyone knew I’d gone. It’s good I did – everything looks different at night. The sand isn’t tan, it’s a pale, cool grey. And the mud isn’t brown, but musky purple with thin streaks of a smoky sort of lavender. Looking up, the trees make a thick black pattern over a deep, blue-black sky, and the kindly white stars play peek-a-boo as you travel, curious enough to follow you as you go. They seem eager to chase the spaces between the dark branches, as if to spy on whatever adventure it is you’re planning. At least, that’s how it seemed to me (how it still seems, whenever I’m able to sneak out and wave to them, hi stars, glad you’re still there, thanks for waiting).
That first night, I heard the cricket choruses for the first time. I’d eaten crickets, of course. They’d never been my favorite (eat your crickets, eat your crickets, every mother turtle wants you to eat your stupid crickets, green bugs make strong turtles, and blah blah blah, eat your crickets or no dessert), and I’d heard one or two squeak in fear or anger throughout the day. They click their heels and scrape their feet, chirp chirrrp chirp.
But that night – I’d never heard them like that. At least a hundred, maybe two hundred. Maybe more. But their feeble daytime chirps seemed so unfair in light of what they had been hiding. Sweeping, synchronized gales of sound. A melody made of dancing legs in the night. I didn’t know what to feel except (amazed, enchanted, enamored) . . . cheated.
Then came the frogs. It’s worth mentioning that turtles and frogs do not tend to get along. When Cam first lost his leg, a couple of the other young turtles called him “frog legs” because of his odd hop-limp when he walked, (Nigel once called Donny a “son of a frog” after he’d heard Cam say it – Donny didn’t speak to anyone for two days, Rupert cried for three, and when mom found out she slapped Nigel across the face and told him she’d put him out of the nest if he ever said anything like that again, then begged us all never to let dad hear about the incident, ever). I’d never been too near any frogs, and I’d never spoken to one before. There aren’t many living in our pond, and they usually stay on the West side. I’d traveled a good long way, to reach frog territory. There were maybe ten of them, twelve at most – each to his own lily pad, with one leader on a fallen log at the shore. They belted and hummed, and I spied on them from the reeds, listening with closed eyes (they’re so ugly, frogs, so so ugly, but their voices . . .). I’d heard birds sing before, and the buzz of cicadas in the summer (and geez, I hate cicadas, they’re so annoying and they taste even worse than crickets), but frogs have this booming, stuttering resonance to their voices.
The cricket chorus and the frog choir, chimes and bellows, fluttering notes and rough undertones. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. The first song I ever learned.
At first, mom thought it was cute, when I tried to sing. To hum while catching water bugs, to swim to a metered rhythm, to sing myself to sleep. I was young, and even when I wasn’t so young, I was always such a little turtle. It was cute, when I was still a baby.
Then, one day, it wasn’t.
I hadn’t allowed my brothers’ teasing and my sister’s giggles to keep me from singing (and sneaking out as often as every other evening, to listen to the nighttime concerts, reliving them in my head during meditation the next day, counting time and memorizing the swells and falls while everyone else pursued their own blank, quiet mind spaces), and during dinner one evening, I asked my mother quite plainly if we could put on a concert of sorts, so that I might sing for our neighbors and family (I couldn’t keep this to myself, everyone should know about the songs, because they were too good to hide for just myself and the dark and the curious stars, surely), and perhaps she might sing with me. At my asking, mom made a scuffling noise like she’d almost choked on her food, and my older brothers coughed to stifle their laughter. Emilie – little Emilie’s face – was only mild and curious.
But dad just looked at me, for a long, awful time (and I immediately thought, I’m sorry, without knowing what I was supposed to be sorry for). He breathed out hard and slow through his nose. He spoke lowly through his teeth, “we are turtles, not frogs.” And that was the end of that.
(Only it wasn’t, because even though I have never brought it up again, he has. He brings it up all the time, reiterating how much of a turtle I’m supposed to be, and how much of a frog I seem to act like instead, but frogs croak and croak and burp brickbat in response to insults, and never suffer in silence, and never let something go unsaid, and they sing, they sing their shrill oral histories to each other all night long, songs about stars and water and the cool slime of brotherhood and leaping flying falling, and I don’t, I don’t sing at all anymore, and I don’t ever say anything when dad breathes through his nose at me and speaks lowly, I always stay silent, but sometimes, in secret, quiet night-time places, sometimes I wish so damn desperately that I could be a damned frog, so fine, maybe he’s right after all, but I don’t care, I still think he’s wrong.)
I was four and a half when my singing stopped being cute. And for nine and a half long years, I was not allowed to sing.
And then I met Doberman.
TBC in chapter 2
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