Turtle eggs

Charlie and I walked down to the mailbox to post a card for Rowan’s sixth birthday and pick up the mail. I might have missed the small hole in the soft dirt on the shoulder of Gulf Road about 10 feet from the mailbox if Charlie hadn’t been so interested in it. Once I looked over to see what he was investigating, I noticed the white scraps in the dirt, and I knew it was the leathery remains of turtle eggs. The nest had clearly been dug up, probably by a raccoon, possibly the same one who tipped over our garbage can last week and spread trash all over the road. The turtle was probably a snapper. We swerved to avoid one crossing route 28 on our way into Cooperstown yesterday. They are big and slow, and they favor the loose dirt on the shoulders of roads for their nests, although you’d think the ones who crossed the roads to get to the opposite shoulder would win Darwin Awards. Perhaps nesting right alongside a road discourages shyer predators from raiding the nests. There is always a risk/reward equation to our choices.

The risk/reward calculation has been on my mind a lot as our region of NY State enters phase three of opening from lock down. Do I get a haircut, play mah jongg, go out to dinner? We’ve had only 4 new cases in the county in the last month, for a total of 70 known cases, so our risk factor is pretty low. Still, I find myself surprisingly risk averse. There is so little I miss that seems rewarding enough to justify risk. I do go to the Farmers’ Market, where we have to stop at the hand washing station and wear masks, where the crowd size is counted and controlled, where there are directional arrows on the floor, and where the vendors have to select produce for us. And our little mah jongg group is working out a plan to play in Elaine’s well ventilated barn. But much as we’d love to spend the time together and play, everyone is wary. Elaine had grand kids visit from downstate. Tamar will spend a weekend here next week, also coming up from closer to the city. Donna had house guests too. And Kathy has not been off chemo for all that long. We share our risk factors by email, and no one is quite ready to say, let’s do it, let’s play this week in masks and bring our own coffee and snacks.

But there is no risk involved in walking down to the mailbox, and the rewards are substantial. Today, there is a beautiful bright orange stand of Indian paintbrush right near Gulf. The bobolinks hover above the tall grass, resplendent in black and yellow and orange feathers. They drop into the grass, probably tending hidden nests. I didn’t see the goslings today, but they are often out on parade with their watchful parents. The pale green of spring has grown darker and richer and fuller. I can no longer see the small pond to the southeast of us, visible all fall and winter, but hidden now behind a green barricade. The neighbor’s field to the west has disappeared behind the leafed trees too. And the air is filled with the scent of wild strawberry blossoms.

Scent has the power to transport. And that strawberry scent is the scent of the opening of the blissful days of childhood summers. There was a field in Amenia, just across the northern boundary of our property, that was the best place to pick the tiny wild strawberries in July. I know I must have gone there with many different kids, but it is Naomi Rapkin, dead for some fifty years, who I remember most as a strawberry picking companion. The memory of that field, of lying on our backs in the warm, fragrant grass looking up into the huge blue sky, eating the tiny, outrageously sweet berries, that memory is the heart of summer freedom and joy. But it always comes with the shadow of Naomi’s death. She was not the first young friend I lost to suicide, nor the last. Those suicides of friends in my late teens and early twenties were my first wake up call to the presence of death, to the notion that it was not inevitable to choose life, or to go on living even if you did choose it. Death has been my greatest teacher since that first rash of suicides, teaching me what matters, what lasts, what I care about, who I am and who I want to be.

On a beautiful summer day here, I think about the risk of having company, of eating out, of playing mah jongg. Impossible not to think about risk these days, but also impossible not to think about rewards, especially about the pleasure of being with people I love. Jupiter, Saturn and the moon, lined up in a clear, dark country sky give me that little zing of pleasure; but it is not the pleasure of seeing Tamar’s smile or getting trounced by her at Scrabble. I know something about what death means, and I know a great deal about how sweet life can be. Like the snapping turtle, I weigh the odds.