Jim was stuck. In the middle of the rural two-lane highway. Right there on the pavement. Not far from the solid yellow line. Tucked tightly in his shell. Scared to death.
Vehicles sped past little Jim, on both sides, shooting by with the deafening roars of F-16s.
All he could see were their tires from this angle. Big black wheels, flying past so quickly they looked like grayish blurs. Thick synthetic rubber treads, gripping the highway floor, making loud rubberized noises on the pavement, only inches from his tiny head.
Jim knew what these machines were, of course. Everyone knows. And, more importantly, he knew what they could do to a small creature like himself. He’d seen the aftermath before.
Squirrels. Possums. Raccoons. Even dogs. Fast and agile creatures, each one of them. But they were no match for the machines with tires. The unfortunate animals were struck. Their limp bodies often lay on the highway shoulder. Unattended. Forgotten. Picked clean by the turkey buzzards.
“What shall I do?” Jim was thinking to himself. “If these speedy machines can kill quick-moving creatures like dogs and cats and chipmunks, they can surely kill slow things like me.”
He had only been crossing the highway on his way to the pond. The pond where he was born. This was what his species did, each year. They returned to the old homeplace.
Year after year, all of Jim’s kind came from distant parts of the forest, following their internal compasses. They reunited at the old pond where they had hatched. They came here to nest. To mate. To lay eggs. They’d been doing this for hundreds, if not thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years. Ever since the earth cooled.
Human scientists would call this behavior “site fidelity.” Scientists would marvel at this tortoise instinct. These creatures could follow thousands of miles of featureless oceans, skies, and terrain without a map, using only magnetoreception (magnetic fields) to find the place of their origin.
But it wasn’t instinct. It wasn’t magnetoreception. It was intuition, really.
Every creature knows the way. They are born with everything needed inside themselves to do what needs to be done. Nobody teaches a lizard how to be a lizard. Nor a fish to behave like a fish. Somehow, they just know.
But it’s easy to get lost. And it’s even easier to meet manmade obstacles like trafficky highways, parking lots, or mountainous hunks of speeding steel that block your path.
So Jim stayed put. Vehicles whizzed past. SUVs the size of national monuments, spewing exhaust. Massive trucks with chromium silhouettes of naked ladies on the mudflaps. Commercial vehicles with a few dozen tires, speeding right over the top of him.
When you’re caught in the middle of a busy highway, sometimes your only option is to stop moving. As looney as it sounds, your safest place is sometimes the yellow line.
The center of the hurricane.
After all, if Jim were to turn around and go back where he came from, he would die. Likewise, if he kept going forward, he would die. If he made a move in ANY direction, he would become a tortoise-flavored pancake.
So Jim sucked himself into his shell. And he waited.
He closed his little eyes and hoped. Maybe things would slow down eventually, he was thinking. Maybe the noisy, rumbly, gassy machines would stop, and he could keep waddling forward. Or, perhaps, he thought, this is the end for me. Maybe it’s just my time to go.
And even though, in this moment, Jim is terrified of the pain that lies ahead, he knows somehow, just like all animals know, this is how it’s intended to be.
Everything that happens must happen. And this has to be okay, because this is what is. No matter what we think about it, no matter how rigidly we try to control it, to resist it, to prevent it, to manipulate it, to alter it, to soften it, to divert it. What will be will be.
And that’s when Jim feels himself begin to float off the highway.
Soon, his feet are suspended high above the earth. He is lifted from the yellow line by an unseen hand.
And although he can hardly believe it, all the giant machines have stopped. They are all standing still on the highway, allowing him to pass. Their headlights blazing, bursts of air exiting their grille-like nostrils, and smoke blasting from their tailpipes.
“I’m flying!” Jim is thinking as he makes his airborne journey across the highway.
And he is flying. Someone is carrying him. Something is holding him.
Oddly, at first Jim’s reaction is to fight his rescuer. It’s instinct. Animal reflex. To buck and flail against the one who helps you. When you’re lifted from the solid ground, the ground you’ve clung to every moment of your livelong life, you have no choice but to convulse.
But eventually the involuntary flailing stops. And Jim’s little brain, his tiny nervous system, and his entire physiology come to a deep realization that all he can do now is trust.
That’s it. Trust. There is nothing else to do. There is no other course of action in life. So you might as well give up. The faster you quit fighting, the easier it will be.
Because the hands that hold you must know something you don’t. Did they not lift you from danger? Are they not hands that shield you from harm? Do they not now hold you against their breast?
Soon, you are placed in the tall grass, in the same direction you were going. You turn to view your hero, but he or she is already gone.
So you just sit there for a little while, taking it all in.
You do not know who rescued you. Neither do you have any way of thanking them for the help. But it doesn’t matter. Your thanks is not required by the one who saved you. They don’t need your adulation. They don’t need your applause. They don’t even need your recognition. They are completely fine with you never even knowing their name.
Because, after all, you are only a small turtle, and nothing you could say or do would change the way they obviously feel about you.
But it doesn’t mean you aren’t grateful. You are. Every breath you take is an act of gratitude. Of thanksgiving. Of joy. Of love. Of happiness.
Then, you look around at the forest. At the birds in the trees. And you have this startling moment of clarity, as you watch them soar through the air.
The birds sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
Yes.
Jim’s a pretty sharp little turtle.
Sean Dietrich is a columnist and novelist known for his commentary on life in the American South. He has authored nine books and is the creator of the “Sean of the South” blog and podcast.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
Don’t miss out! Subscribe to our newsletter and get our top stories every weekday morning.
