TORTOISE THOUGHTS

Do you know what’s inside a tortoise’s shell? The answer, is a tortoise.

Don’t laugh at me. I thought it would be mostly empty space, a cool cavern for pulling arms, leg and head in. If I’d been pushed to think about it, I might have said ‘water’ - after all, I read somewhere that they used to be stacked up on sailing ships like cartons of aqua minerale.

Well. Turns out the shell’s part of its skeleton, and inside it are the tortoise’s vital organs, packed tightly behind that glossy dome like an organic backpack for heart, lungs and liver. It doesn’t carry its home around with it - it carries itself around with it, just like the rest of us do.

That’s how I feel today - like we’re lugging ourselves round without a home. We’re blessed in that we have somewhere to stay for a while, but of course, everything is temporary and so everything is minimalised and suitcased as though we’re on an indefinite vacation - only, this vacation is the kind where you go on holiday to your normal life. Rather more ‘taking it all with you’ than ‘getting away from it all’.

Anyway. Don’t let me be ungrateful. After the burst of physical energy it took to get us out of the flat, there’s bound to be a period of time to adjust, to breathe, to recover. What I think is also happening is an emotional recovery. It’s like swirling a bucket of water - you can stop moving the bucket, but the water needs a little more time to come to rest. That’s where we are. And we need to be kind.

I wonder now, if that’s what’s happening to teenagers. Rapid, unprecedented change is accompanied by a swirling storm of emotion and confusion and helplessness that just takes time to heal. How, I wonder, would adults fare if they had to go through adolescence twice? Would it be more understandable second time round?

Anyway. The tortoise is the shell; the shell is the tortoise. The suitcase is not the nomad, but the nomad needs easy access to the suitcase. Seems are both could be slow when it comes to getting home.