Inward, Lost In The Maze On A Turtle's Shell
My ex-wife told me once, before we were married, that I was a challenge to love because I was the most self-absorbed man she had ever met. I guess I’d confess to being inward. But in what? Now that, I think, is a good question. If you leap straight to the conclusion that I’m in myself, I’d bicker with you about what that means and then I’d tell you about the turtle. This is the kind of stuff that calls me to stare at walls. My daughter grabs my face with her tiny hands and says “Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad.” until I snap back in her presence and say “Yes? What? Hrmm?”
“You’re weird.”
*
Why do we remember what we remember? When most of it’s forgot, then why just this warehouse of just these things? Maybe the memories that stick around want something from us. Or maybe, more than just something, they actually want us. What I mean is that the stuff of memory competes for us, claims us, takes us away from what is present. And yet we’re present in the memory. Who are we now when we’re present then? I’ve been wondering lately, when I’m staring at the walls, if the stuff of memory isn’t made of the same stuff of dreams.
*
Randy Pope, my step-brother, tells me to look—a turtle. Captive in Randy’s hand, the turtle’s legs lumber through the air to get away. “Aw. He’s scared.” I say. I’m not sure how old I am. I am a Little Boy. I drag my finger across the turtle’s cold shell made of irregular outlines of connected shapes and splashes of yellow that don’t commit to any pattern. I don’t touch the turtle’s yellow places; that would be inappropriate. Rather, I drag my finger through the brown maze around the yellow countries and get lost. “Of course he’s scared. Wouldn’t you be?” Randy says as he lifts the turtle above our heads and smashes it on the pavement before I can answer or even create a concept in which to experience what was happening. A window broke with firecrackers and a little girl screamed in my face. When the turtle’s shell cracked, my head cracked open and the world poured in or I poured out or both—it’s hard to say.
*
Though it has no context, no before or after, the memory itself is as vivid as a painting in a museum. It’s my way in. The memory holds the place where I enter memory and fantasy, where I speak with stones and receive council from the dead. In this way, going in becomes the way out; my inwardness is a radical extroversion. I am so much more than a self or a self is so much more than a me. It’s hard to say. It’s very much like the maze on the shell of a turtle. Easy to get lost in.
“Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad.”
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Reader Comments (14)
I like the thought of our memories sticking around because they want something from us. I can't stop thinking about it. It's what I will be mulling over when I stare at the wall later when Tessa is taking her nap. Always happy to read a post from you. Thank you.
Little boys are a turtle's primary enemy. I had several skirmishes with them as a child, too.
Yes. I have these doorways in, too.
I gasped when Randy smashed the turtle. I was lost in the maze, too. Didn't see it coming even though it was right in front of my face. Where's the book?
Your little-boy grasp of turtle dignity is such a contrast to that act.
Every time it rains, these snails appear out of nowhere. It doesn't rain here in Texas often, so I like to imagine that the snails' cells begin rapidly multiplying with the first raindrop, and by the time the last raindrop has fallen (sometimes mere minutes after the first), the fully formed snails are the only clue that it ever rained at all, dragging their slime across the rapidly drying concrete. These snails get stuck there and dry up, and it breaks my heart. But what breaks my heart more is the thought of accidentally stepping on one. Something about breaking a shell feels very wrong. Wronger, I imagine, than strangling a person would feel. So every time it rains, you can find me, without fail, scampering around the snails littering the sidewalks, screaming to anyone within earshot, "Don't step on the snails! Don't step on the snails!"
You have given me pause. My doorway in was, perhaps, a family reunion in Mississippi. I was younger than young. Some of my cousins whipped an old collie dog with sticks that they'd ripped off of trees. I was a city girl, not a mouse, and they were country, not mice.
Thank you for this one. I don't even know if I can explain why, just.... thank you.
Memories do indeed want something from us. I've had ones bide their time for decades, waiting for just the right moment to make themselves known, and then extort their toll.
ARE memories the same as dreams? I really want to know. Haunting, provocative dreams blur the boundaries of reality and make me contemplate the past? future? a dare, a hazard, a chance.... I do not know.
Aww... That poor turtle! What did you do after Randy smashed the turtle? PS. You are weird.
My snapshot memories like that tend to have such a strange luster about them that I've become convinced they've been touched up here and there by my dreams.
are you kidding? You ARE a fantastic writer...and you are letting it all go to shit?
You ARE weird, but you're also kind of like a trailblazer, lighting the way for all the rest of us weirdos trying to understand the world and why we seem like such broken little pieces in it.
And man, that turtle story is just fucked up. That's all you can say, it's probably why the term was invented. The way you tell it, though, makes it so much more interesting, at least, than the basic, "Hey, wanna hear this fucked-up story?"