Introducing Kame

Meet Kame. (Pronounced 'Kah-may')
Handsome little guy, isn't he? Kame is my Eastern Box Turtle. Or rather, I should say, I am his human. We've been cohabiting now for an entire season.

More than through the a passing of Spring to Summer, and entering into the early part of Fall, Kame has accompanied me through a season of life, and has become intertwined with my journey in ways I never expected.

In May 2010, my husband Ken traveled over twenty hours to go on a hunting trip, because the turkeys in the midwest are, by some estimation only understood by avid (obsessive!) turkey hunters, superior to the turkeys here in Upstate New York.

Box turtles are common where Ken was hunting that week. He'd seen several around the lodge before he found Kame bumping along the edge of the door. When he opened it to see who was knocking so insistently, Kame came right in and made himself at home. Knowing how much I adore turtles, Ken decided to make this determined little guy a part of our family.

Ordinarily Ken and I are adamantly against removing an animal from the wild. Wild-caught animals often do poorly in captivity, and it's cruel to take them from the environment they're familiar with because it's difficult to give them everything they're used to in a captive situation. Kame, however, is more than just a "cool animal" that Ken brought me home as a pet. He was a peace offering, a gift of understanding and acceptance from my husband. His entrance into our lives represented a small step on the journey we've been on this past year, toward reconciliation, rebuilding and healing after the near-disintegration of our marriage.

I hope to record, in this blog, some of our story, interspersed and intertwined with tales of my favorite fictional Turtles and snippets of day to day life, with all its messy, chaotic joy.

I once reviewed a book that opened this way:

“I found a pen; another person found a scrap of paper; a third person, the words. “Dead End,” we wrote and left it on the side of the road for the next traveler to find and perhaps turn around in time.” -For Sarah, by Annie Harmon

This year, conversing with friends through various media, I have become convinced that in writing notes for others, we begin to understand our own journeys. Perhaps, through these musings we might travel together for a time, and learn from one another along the way.