Rite of spring.

Adapted from my morning pages, April 3rd, 2012:

While driving to Melleray, I saw a turtle in the middle of the road. I cooed and turned around to go pick it up and deposit it safely on the other side of the road. Just as I pulled up beside it, a huge truck—passing wide so as to miss me—ran right over the turtle. The turtle exploded. I heard its shell crack. Then it was not a turtle anymore, but a Picasso of a turtle. Its limbs had been forced out of its shell by the impact and were shivering in the heat. A pool of blood was expanding around the turtle, very bright, almost fluorescent red in the sun. I stayed where I was, trying to breathe, to salvage the situation, to do over the last sixty seconds so that things had gone differently. I wanted to get out and tell the disassembled turtle that I’d tried. The pool of blood had developed a long finger that was pouring towards me.

I went on to Melleray, where I shared a snack of ginger snaps with my baby nephew Niko. He is on the verge of forming his first full sentences. Mama aquí. Abuelo aquí. Tia aquí.