When I was a kid, I loved hunting for spotted turtles. There was a swamp a half mile from my house, and every afternoon I’d run down to sift through the mud. If I ever found one, I’d scoop it up, bring it home, and ask my parents if we could keep it. They’d always say no. They told me that I wouldn’t like it if someone picked me up and carried me away from my house. Eventually I stopped bringing them home, but I still laughed and poked them with sticks to watch their orange spots as they moved.
Serenity lived in that swamp. The wind in my hair and the soil on my toes kept me grounded, kept me alive. There was a little bend in the creek feeding the swamp where a massive boulder sat among a mat of weeds and flowers; climbing that thing and tumbling back down was like magic to me. Nothing could burden me if I didn’t want it to.
But then I got older. I had schoolwork, social obligations, college prep. I didn’t have time to just go out and play. I became sullen and withdrawn, and by late high school, I stopped spending time with the other girls my age. Every weekend, I returned to my old swamp, slipped my shoes off, and painted. I told my peers that I was capturing the soul of the world, and I might have even believed it.
They were good paintings, though. After a few arguments with my parents, I decided to attend an art school in the city. It was good for me; it got me back out of my shell. I had interesting conversations with interesting people, and I got better at what I loved doing. But none of it sat right. I always felt like the city air was thinly coating my lungs, and my clothes held a slightly acrid smell that wouldn’t come out. When I’d go home for holidays, I’d find myself surprised at how many birds I heard. Every painting showed progress, and every semester I was told I was good at capturing the world around me. But the world around me didn’t seem real. I was in some sort of dream I was desperate to wake up from.
So I moved back home.
The sights and the sounds were the same as I remembered. The art stores and bookshops were all staffed by my old friends. I stretched a few canvases and bought a few paints, but I didn’t actually do any painting. Every morning I walked down the front steps of my childhood home, and every evening I walked back up. Even in such a small town, there were so many places I had never actually been. I found a cozy little cafe on Orchard Street. I must have driven past it every day in high school, and I just never stopped to look.
It took me a month to go back to my favorite swamp. It was quieter and stiller than I remembered, like watching a memory through frosted glass. I thought I’d get to relive those memories—catch some turtles like I used to—so I rolled up my sleeves, set my shoes by my car, and squatted by the bank of the creek. There weren’t any turtles in their old hiding spots, so I sat on a rock, waited, and watched.
The next few days were much the same, but on the fifth day, one crawled out of the weeds towards me. I scooped it up and held it to my face. It craned its neck to peer at me with a small orange eye. We stayed there for a moment, looking at each other in wonder.
“Let it go.”
A young man was approaching me—a college student home on break?
“I’m not going to hurt her,” I said.
The man sighed. “What you have there is a spotted turtle. We need to be careful with them.”
Then he told me that the spotted turtle is endangered, that I can help the conservation effort, that the swamp would be poisoned or dried soon. He left, and I looked down at the turtle in my hands. The turtle looked back at me, and he clawed languidly at my palm. I set him down carefully and fetched my paints from my car. Back on my rock, I laid my canvas board across my thighs, and I got to work.
This had to be a one-sitting painting. It felt like I’d never see a turtle here again. After a few hours, the painting was done. The background was painted in fervent, hasty strokes: grass bled together, trees were covered in cancerous shoots, and the water glistened black in the light of a pale yellow sun. In the foreground, there was a turtle. The smooth and firm strokes brought life to its hardy body, and it seemed the only real thing left in the degraded, decomposing scene.
I set the painting aside and leaned back, looking up at the sky. A lone white cloud passed behind the thin tree cover, blocking out the sun. I traced absent designs in the mud with my index finger, then remembered the student, then drew my hand back. A heavy weight pressed down on me, and I pulled my feet up from the mud and onto the rock.
Movement flickered in the corner of my eye. The turtle ambled towards my painting, peering curiously at the image of itself. Once I realized it meant to touch the paint, I snatched up the painting and held it over my head. The turtle stared at me. It let out four weak chirps, waiting for a response between each. No response came. We stared at each other for a moment, then it bowed its head and sulked back into the grass.
That was six months ago. I keep a closed terrarium in my room now, and I watch it for hours on end. The inspiration to paint never comes. The only painting I have to hang is that scene of the swamp. About once a month, when I’m really restless, I’ll go back. But now I walk in closed-toe shoes along the newly-installed boardwalks.