43.2 Turtle and Trains i didn’t feel rested this morning and when i woke… i didn’t want to be awake was it yesterday i dreamt of being in alaska sitting in hot springs with northern lights impossibly sparking like cartoon electricity over my head? what strange funk was i in this morning? i didn’t want to feel like i felt i lolled around in bed being here with family i often feel like taking a few hours alone to myself late at night and whenever i wake up but the rest of the time i feel i should be present with them that’s what i’m here to do to be with them that was how it was when i came back in 2019 and though things are different now: i was here then specifically to be with them to experience them as they are now i’m just… living here now this is a place i am and i don’t want to fall back into childhood habits of adversive self isolation and avoiding them i feel guilty when i have massage clients or isolate to play videogames but i’m finding a balance anyway when i wake up afer a while of being awake i feel an urge to go down and be with family and these last few days my mother has been very sick so there is another sensation of wanting to care for her but i gave two massages yesterday and i’m very noticing how “drained” that makes me feel vs when i was here last year and not giving any so i got out of bed slowly (oh, the internet is taking more of my time as well because i am posting… and when i’m posting i am looking at replies: all of that takes time… and in recent years i have greatly curtailed my posting… all in an effort to not be starting at social media a lot… it’s worked well… it’s amazing how much time social media can take up… but hey, for many people it’s still The Greatest Show On Earth… i’m kinda over it… but it is what it is… and it allows me to be with all of you fine people… my voice in your mind… hand in hand… ) and went down stairs and puzzled a bit talking with mom about what we were going to do today we got a plan which lagged and lagged i made a nice lunch of lambs quarters and greens (oh, i didn’t talk about that in the video, darn) there is this weed that grows like crazy in our garden not our garden this year but all over the compost heap it’s a lovely wild spinach sometimes called Miner’s Lettuce i mostly call it Lambs Quarters i tried to grow kale last year but some bug ate it all this wild thing: nothing eats it it wants to be here and i don’t need to do anything it just grows and grows so i eat a lot of it (last year it was purslane.. i wonder if it will come back too? none in sight yet) i made a great breakfast of eggs, left over beef, and lambs quarters then i fed and watered the chickens then took off to go into town to buy some things for the dinner i was making and some other things for my mom (coz she’s sick) but on the way into town i saw an elderly couple standing by a fence of a subdivision with a shovel and a… what was that? a big metal pot? a bucket? a lid? a big stone? holyshit… a turtle? a huge turtle! i love turtles and i swung the car around in the next subdivision and drove back to where they were parked the car in their subdivision and walked up to them and said hello “can i be of help? is that a pet?” no! they said… it is some big wild beast… we think it’s a snapping turtle… it got stuck under the fence and we’re trying to help it out… i told them it wasn’t a snapping turtle i assured them (i thought it wasn’t) and suggested i come around the inside and pick up the turtle and get it away from the road the woman suggested the turtle was trying to get to the pond… that seemed like a good idea to me so when i went to grab the turtle they were very worried for me because it was aggressively attacking the shovel i assured them i would be fine: turtles are a known quantity, you know? they are a shell and legs and a head and if you hold the back of their shell, they cannot bite you (i’m only now remembering that it can hurt them if you hold them by only the upper part of their shell… because their innards are heavy and put a lot of strain on the lower part of their body… they just aren’t meant to be held like that) it took a while for me to pick him up he had a huge tail and huge claws! such a huge turtle! (more pics on my instagram) he was digging himself into the ground holding himself firm and trying to destroy me with him mouth oddly, i had no fear i held his shell firmly and eventually fond the leverage to pull him out from under the fence and up into the air i carried him about twenty feet before he figured he could get his back claw to scratch my fingers … he didn’t have a good angle or speed, so he wasn’t really hurting me but he had the potential to now that he had figured out how to do it he was smart and would figure out how to hurt me soon so i put him down and took a step back he was pissed off aggro-turtle and i understand he was scared and confused and was just stuck under a fence i thought he was a box turtle or something (spoiler alert: he was a snapping turtle) i was really impressed that he kept his eyes on me and kept turning to face me whenever i changed direction he was not actively trying to chase me or anything but he was letting me know he was watching me i mentioned to the two people that i might have a box in the car… the Woman said she would go get a box while she was gone i decided to take off my sandals and wrap them around the shell in such a way to protect me from his claws i looked at him and he suddenly seemed calm and let me walk behind him and pick him up again so i could carry him to the pond this was a subdivision the houses were close the pond was three houses away i was walking barefoot through the manicured lawns… the woman called out to me not to put him in the water she wanted a picture of him she was running at me albeit slowly i kept walking to the water so i could put him down he was holding his mouth open i could imagine he was hissing at me and i realized he probably didn’t like being held vertically so i held him horizontally and told him a story about how he was a flying turtle you know, like Gamara he could just enjoy flying through the air to the pond he got the message and relaxed into enjoying the ride… i put him down a few feet from the water and he responded similarly to how he did the first time and the older fellow walked up still carrying the shovel and the turtle really didn’t like the shovel as it had just been trying to push him through the fence so he bit at it again but then calmed down a bit the woman took a picture of the two of us the turtle relaxed turned around and walked into the water and swam away the man asked how heavy i thought that turtle was “20 pounds”? i don’t know, i said, if you were a man… that might be correct you know, the way we like to exaggerate things the woman thought it might only be 6 pounds it was not overly heavy but i’m not a good judge of things i figured he was at least as heavy as a gallon of water i kept saying “it could be a box turtle… though they usually have a higher domed shell… but i’ve never seen one this old before” they said, “yeah, he’s been here longer than us…” and proceeded to just relax into being human with me tragedy averted our stories came out they moved here three years ago from the Ozarks to be nearer their daughter they had lived in Chicago they had lived around they went to Rome a few years ago didn’t go anywhere else in Italy no, Not Florence, Not Venice: they just wanted to see Rome i’m glad people live their dreams they asked me where my favorite place in the world was … i don’t like playing favorites but i decided not to take that tact i told them about Thailand how i got to study and have wonderful adventures see ancient histories and also just relax in the ocean i told them how the ocean was almost body temperature (he response was how bad that would be for breeding bacteria…) i mentioned how i could float in the sea without having to fight the waves or even move to stay warm… could float and bob around in the setting sun… the vermillion lavender gorgeous sky reflecting all around me for hours every night i loved it and the massage was good too and the food… the man didn’t ask me what i did for a living he asked what my Skill was i loved that we talked a bit as we walked back towards their house i realized i had parked the car directly in front of their house i told them i was on an errand for my mother and they said i should call her and tell her what happened her reply was “Wow! What a nice act of kindness!” and i hadn’t thought of it like that but it was the woman invited me into her house to show me… something upstairs i liked the mystery of it and thought how odd it was she admitted to me she was 80 but she wasn’t afraid was it because of my haircut? or just my general aura? or that she wasn’t from Indiana? Hoosiers seem to be so paranoid or at least my family is… but she invited me into her house i washed the turtle off my hands then went up stairs with her: she had a huge train set filling a whole room bigger than all i’d seen downstairs they had cards printed up they invited families to bring their kids up to see the trains she had three different tracks with different cars and even another one made out of LEGO that she controlled with an app on her phone the joys of life right? what a nice surprise she offered me water but i declined and headed out on my way … shopping… home… we went and ran errands found a new farmer’s market and bought some delicious honey soap and just felt good talking with the woman who ran the apiary… it felt nice i was just appreciating the day and when we got home we rested a bit then i made Kitchari: an indian curry i was introduced to as part of a yoga cleansing diet when it was in the pressure cooker i headed out side mainly to give my mom a break from the dog which wimpers at the door obsessively and drives her crazy we went out and i got passionate about gardening planting the watermelons we bought today planting a delicate squash my mom bought last week planting sprouted mung and adzuki beans that i hadn’t put in tonight’s dinner planting sunflowers, passionsflowers and some squash along the rows of corn weeding for a while til the sun had set and the light was almost gone watered the garden and came in to shower one of the great things of shaving my head is being able to shower my whole body face and scalp without worrying about having wet hair for hours it’s a great feeling then i went to watch some TV with my parents and eat the delicious Kitchari i had made… and it had a new effect on me: it made me feel like i had to do yoga it’s never done that to me before it’s certainly a food that is meant to be a medicine to bring things into balance it often makes me feel “high” and i have always said that when i get high i just want to do yoga but i had never felt Kitchari make me feel like doing yoga and doing yoga at 11pm just after eating isn’t such a great idea but i watched TV with my parents and did yoga for about a half hour a bunch of standing poses then some more while sitting in the chair i felt so grateful for the day for helping my mom being with the chickens petting the dog so happy to have some attention paid to him so happy to have helped free the turtle so happy to have met those nice people and shared stories and joys with them so happy to have done yoga! eaten delicious food watched the sunset how beautiful life can be sometimes… last night i wrote about an occurrence that happened a few weeks ago tonight i wrote about today i’ll post this now you can see it the video of me telling the story is uploading right now it will take a few more hours (the internet is slow here) i will embed it in this page before noon i have always been curious how a tale is told and what differences writing or telling it (in videos) can make last night i wrote the story first then told it tonight i told it first then wrote it very different details in each that’s enough i’m tired i love you thank you sleep well have a great day.