Symbol of the Turtle

 

About twenty years ago, I started joking that if I were a member of the First Nations, I would want to belong to the Turtle Clan because I carried my life on my back. When there weren’t books in my bookbag, there were groceries. For a year or so when there wasn’t a bookbag, there was a cloth baby-carrier. Over the past ten years, my bookbag has held binoculars and field guides; kitty nummies from the pet store; biblical Hebrew textbooks; one change of clothing for a three-week hostelling trek through England; a soft-sided water dish, and sometimes plastic containers of kibble mush, for outings with the dog; nursing shoes; office shoes; gym shoes; sixpacks of microbrew; and paints, paper, and pencils for art classes. Name a part of my life, and it’s probably been placed on my back.

Only sometimes does my bookbag seem a burden; usually it feels protective. It reminds me I have a life; it makes me bigger; it gives me warmth; it keeps my hands free. Once it even helped me up. When I tripped on the pavement and pitched headlong, my overstuffed bookbag caused me to judo-roll and be back on my feet before you could say, “Nice patches! You’ve been to New Zealand?”

A few years ago, my partner and my mum and I went to visit the Petroglyphs at Peterborough (Ontario). I stopped to read the story of Turtle in the interpretive centre. It seems that Turtle spent so much time at the bottom of the lake studying all the interesting things down there, that he was late for the job fair. By the time he surfaced, the Great Spirit shrugged and said there were no more jobs left. Turtle, somewhat miffed, overturned a few canoes. I read this, thinking, “Oh, crap! That’s me!”  — all the courses I’ve taken, all the jobs I’ve tried on for size, with nothing ever seeming to really fit. It’s enough to make me pretty grumpy sometimes.

But the grumpy turtle plods on. The grump crumbles away. Things that don’t fit slide off. No accumulations of wealth — oh, but the vistas I’ve seen! The things I’ve learned! The creatures I’ve greeted! The stories I could tell you!

Maybe Turtle is a storyteller.