Even a Tortoise Sticks Its Neck Out

"When you obtain any pet, you should think seriously about the commitment to giving that pet proper care for the entirety of its life. When that pet is a tortoise, that commitment could last 40 years or more." E. J. Pirog, Russian Tortoises © 2005 T.F.H Publications, Inc.

Tortoises and turtles have fascinated me with their easy-going, non-aggressive nature and their longevity. They also tend to live within a small area from where they hatch. Craig Stanford wrote in his book, The Last Tortoise: A Tale of Extinction in Our Lifetime (Belknap Press, 2010) that researchers in the 1960's found the same box turtle 28 times within twenty-five feet of its original capture location many years earlier.

Settling into a new living space three years ago I made the commitment to Uma and Mariska, two Russian tortoises I adopted from a pet store.

Uma, the smaller introvert, hisses as she retreats into her shell when picked up. Her scowl is perpetual, whether she is eating or looking beyond the glass of her home, which has a view of the world outside the window of my office. Mariska, the extrovert, seeks ways to get to the soft floor carpeting where, upon occasion, she and Uma have been allowed to crawl for great distances - from their fist-sized perspective. When I pick her up, she extends her neck, eager for my fingertip to stroke the top of her smooth, dry head.

I'll sit next to them in my office as I read; their home on a dresser at eye level from my chair. They notice and will look over at the human who drops the leafy greens and an occasional strawberry - all organic - in their food bowl daily. Whatever their adventure was prior to my bringing them here from the pet store, they seem to accept this habitat as their home.

The realization that the three of us will be living together for 30, 40, maybe even 50 years is amazing, when put into perspective.

In early September, 2010, I attended my 30^th year high school class reunion. I did not attend our 5^th year, and never heard about the 10^th or 20^th year reunions. Ours was a big high school, with Plymouth Salem graduating just over 500 and Plymouth Canton over 400. Yet, except for three people who I had irregular contact with after graduation, it was as if they all had disappeared from my life.

A little over a year before the reunion classmates began surfacing on Facebook. Despite the physical distance, connections were re-established. This time, I had an interest in attending.

I grew up in Plymouth, Michigan, in a subdivision where my parents were the youngest couple on the block. There were no kids my age on the street to grow up and build a lasting friendship with. And the older kids that were around had already developed friendships long before I ventured off to elementary school. I didn't develop any real close relationships until high school, and even then, it was as a third or fourth wheel to other long-established friendships. Thus my life was rather sheltered and I was shy, retreating often within my shell and socially awkward those eighteen years of life.

The 30^th reunion reaffirmed this. Very few of the 200+ attendees still lived in Plymouth - myself included. Some resided in nearby suburbs, and others called home in places more distant. Some maintained their friendships from high school while others, like me, had lost contact. A lot of us guys looked the same, though with a little more mass and a little less hair than when we graduated in the spring of 1980. A lot of the women matured beautifully. Some maintained their high school personality and others had traveled down the road of life and became different people. When I looked at my senior photo attached to the name tag, I did not recognize it as me. Yet despite connecting with so many of them on Facebook, it was still awkward for me.

That was thirty years of separation. A good chunk of time. Some things change and yet some remain the same.

My parents still live in that same three-bedroom house my sister and I grew up in. They purchased it two years before I was born and celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary in 2010. Fifty years in the same house, in the same town, creates a sense of security and comfort that life rarely offers.

Conversely, my sister and I moved on. She and her family have created a similar, stable environment, beginning when she and her husband moved to Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, a few miles south of Cincinnati in 1990. Whereas I have gone from living in college dorms to an apartment, to back with the parents, to a mobile home, to a house, and now back in an apartment all, with the exception of living with the parents, in different counties than where I grew up. Instability? All of those dwellings have been while married to the same woman.

18 years growing up in Plymouth .
28 years married.
10 years living in Novi.
12 years living in St. Clair Shores.
22 year old son.
27 year old daughter.
30 years since high school graduation.
51 years parents have resided in the same house.

The security of long-term consistency can feel good. I write this sitting in my home office that has another year's lease to fulfill. I sit in a chair, surrounded by book shelves. The chair and the book shelves purchased from a Borders Book store liquidation - the store closet to my home. I have spent many hours (and dollars) over the last twenty-plus years at Borders in Novi, Birmingham and Utica. The Utica store was the closest, and is now closed. It was a second home. Now, pieces of it are in my home.

The Buddha didn't teach me about impermanence. I have learned that on my own. However, through my Zen practice, I've come to adjust more easily when change occurs. That does not mean I have to like it.

How long can this last - this ability to sit in this space, with which I am surrounded by the familiar? Will it be one year? Two? Another move is inevitable, despite how much I have enjoyed living here for three years.

I look to my left. Uma is chewing on a green oak leaf. Mariska is climbing the half-log. Only three years behind them with another thirty or forty more to go, they don't seem to care...so long as I keep putting fresh greens in their bowl. I'll do that, and let them amble about the floor upon occasion, no matter where we may be. As the Korean proverb goes, a turtle, or in this case tortoise, advances only when it sticks its neck out.