Turtle Truths about Writing

Turtle Truths about Writing

Turtle Truths about Writing

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash
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I heard a memorable analogy this week about life: that most of us approach it as if we are captaining a superyacht, mastering the unpredictable seas and going wherever we like, whereas really we’re all simply on a kayak at the mercy of the wind and the waves.

“To be human, according to this analogy, is to occupy a little one-person kayak, borne along on the river of time towards your inevitable yet unpredictable death. It’s a thrilling situation, but also an intensely vulnerable one: you’re at the mercy of the current, and all you can really do is to stay alert, steering as best you can, reacting as wisely and gracefully as possible to whatever arises from moment to moment.” 

In a delightful synchronicity, I read this while vacationing in Antigua this past week spending every morning kayaking over the Caribbean. (Please do feel free to be envious, as the trip was every bit as paradisical as you might imagine, but do know that it’s my first real vacation in years and it was much needed.)

The analogy was from Oliver Burkeman’s newsletter, one of my favorites, by one of my favorite writers on productivity and approach to life (Four Thousand Weeks), and it lingered with me as I paddled every morning over waters that, yes, really were this turquoise.

Every morning I checked out my kayak from the dive shop with a mission: I wanted to see some sea turtles.

The First Writing Lesson

Years ago I volunteered with an organization called Turtle Time, dedicated to the recovery and protection of marine turtles, and I’ve been enamored of these magnificent creatures ever since.

While out on a Hobie Cat one afternoon with one of the employees at the resort where we were staying, we learned that there were sea grasses along a certain stretch near this cliff where the turtles could often be found feeding, so each morning I paddled about 30 minutes to get there and then just let my kayak drift around the area for another 30 or 40, waiting to see some turtles.

And waiting. And waiting.

On day two I heard another resort guest drifting by on a paddleboard 20 yards away crow delightedly to her companion about the turtle that had just swum up alongside her board. My brother, with whom I was vacationing (long story involving a divorce and one very lucky sister) came back from his daily dive trips reporting on the ones he’d seen.

One morning I saw a flipper pop up, long gone by the time I paddled the 25 feet to where it was. Another morning I saw a head surface, a beautiful gentle Nessie quickly submerged before I got anywhere in the vicinity.

On my third day out, still free of the gentle, peaceful communing with a passing turtle that I craved, I realized that I was spending so much time searching for the turtles that I wasn’t letting myself simply enjoy everything else I was experiencing on the water: the sparkling sea beneath me, its gentle splash against the hull of my kayak, the pleasure and satisfaction of exercising my muscles to pull me across the stretch of shoreline. The sun on my shoulders, the breeze across my skin. The many other sights to see, like the way the water funneled through the rocks at the base of the cliff where I drifted, the graceful squid darting through the shallows, the silver mullet that burst from the water and danced 10 yards across its surface while I enjoyed the show and the enchantment of it.

My writing lesson from this: Sometimes you can get so focused on your goals that you forget to simply enjoy the pleasure of what you’re actually doing.

The Second Lesson

As calm as the Caribbean was on our side of the island, once you paddled past the windbreak of the cliffs the wind was pretty potent. I found it took every bit of strength my trainer and I have spent five years developing in my upper body for me to get the kayak where I wanted to go.

One of my dive-shop buddies watched me manhandle (or womanhandle, more accurately) the craft back to shore as I came in one day, and told me to stop fighting the wind. I was wearing myself out, he said, whereas if I followed the wind more it might take me longer to get where I wanted to go, tacking back and forth with it rather than in the straight line I was insisting on, but I would maintain much more of my energy.

When I followed his advice on subsequent days he was right, of course. Even though tacking extended my time paddling, I could do it much longer and much more easily if I stopped fighting where the wind was pushing me and instead took the zigzagging path it dictated. I still got where I wanted to go, and I didn’t wear myself out on the journey.

My writing lesson from this: In writing, and in a writing career, there are often plenty of forces pushing against you as you push toward where you want to go. Trying to fight them head on is only going to wear you out so you can’t complete the journey. Let yourself be pushed “off course” a bit if it lets you use those forces to help propel you. Even if it takes you longer than you hoped, you’ll be able to maintain your strength to stay the course long-term.

The Third Lesson…?

One day, chatting with one of my new local buddies, he mentioned a bay he knew of where turtles frequently came to feed, and offered to take me there.

So that day, instead of my usual vigil at the sea grasses near the cliffs, we traveled across the island to a quiet and beautiful inlet we mostly had to ourselves, and plunged right into the water with our snorkels and fins.

For 15 minutes or more I swam behind my friend, no turtles to be seen. But I’d learned my lessons well by that point. Even if we didn’t see one, I decided, I’d let myself enjoy the experience.

We saw a couple of stingrays burrowing into the sand, watched them glide away as we neared. Schools of fish darted by and along my body, unconcerned as I joined their group for a little way. The grasses in the relatively shallow water swayed in the green sea, and I let myself relish the feeling of finning smoothly through it as if I were one of the sea creatures surrounding me, feeling happy and satisfied.

And then, out of the soft green haze around us…a turtle, hovering over a patch of grass and calmly regarding us as we swam nearby.

As he pushed himself along through the water with impossible grace, I followed along behind, my new turtle friend content to allow me to swim along in his wake.

A little later, another one, and another—none of the turtles seeming to mind us swimming nearby. As I finned along behind one, we rose to the top together, our heads surfacing simultaneously and then dipping back down below, until I ran out of air and went back to the surface and he swam on alone. (You can watch my video of it on Facebook or Insta.)

I suppose there’s a lesson here about being willing to try new waters if the ones you are rowing don’t offer what you hoped for…or maybe about accepting what you get for its own pleasure, whether or not it matches what you were so hungry for.

But at that point my heart was too full to worry about lessons. I was grateful for all of it: every day I’d spent kayaking in fruitless search and yet enjoying every moment; every time I shared the underwater world for a brief time with those who lived in it on each of our several snorkel trips that week; the new friendships formed on my quest…and the magic timeless moments swimming with the turtles.

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