carapace ovenbird Dad found her in the gravel pit, far from any wetland. He brought her home in a bucket and my brother and I ran out the driveway to see. Her eyes met ours and we named her (without any attempt at orginality) Shelly. I had never met a painted_turtle before and I’m not sure she had met any people, at least not face to face. Mom dug out an old fish tank and created a cozy habitat for her—a heat lamp, a log to sleep on, water to swim in. There were some immediate complications. Shelly, being a wild turtle, refused to eat the pet store turtle food. Her tastes trended more towards…well…the living. So Mom was forced to dig worms up in the back yard for her. Despite not having any real affection for worms, I felt a bit sorry for Shelly’s meals. We would gather around the tank to watch her eat. Mom would drop a worm in and Shelly would prove that she had the capacity to sprint. She would be in the water with the worm ripped in half in under a second. It was gross. And fascinating. And we loved her in the surprising way you can love something that is so unlike you. Shelly was inscrutable, her body an inverse of my own. She was all bone with her softness hidden away. I was vulnerable straight down the skeleton that did its best to hold my tender spirit together. I liked her strength, maybe she liked my ability to cry. We ran into trouble again as winter approached. The ground was freezing and Mom knew that soon we wouldn’t be able to dig up worms and bugs for Shelly. I suspect she also began to wonder if it was right to hold her in a small tank in our dining room. So we said goodbye and Dad took her to the marsh and set her free. I still think about her sometimes—her yellow striped face, the splashes of red on her shell, the way she embodied stillness until hunger stirred her blood. I don’t know what she felt towards us, if she felt anything at all, but I like to think that she held a kind regard for the strange creatures who rescued her and then gave her back to the world. I hope she found enough soft mud to bury herself in. I hope that as her heart slowed and she entered the long sleep of brumation she dreamed of worms. 250827 what's it to you? who go blather from