Turtle Island Dreaming Read online

  “Complicated?” the Turtle Woman asked. It was another curious word for her. Actually, Marina thought, it is not more complicated. What could be more complex, more magical, than the natural chemical reactions of the body in response to its environment? Still, she was looking for some way to explain the almost magical clumping of microscopic particles of silver halide on film.

  “Light,” Marina began, “focused by a lens.” She stopped to see if the Turtle Woman understood this word. “A glass,” Marina tried. “A crystal,” she added, and at this the Turtle Woman nodded. “Light, focused by a crystal, makes patterns on a sensitive surface that reflects what we see.”

  “What we see?” the Turtle Woman asked with emphasis on the word “we.”

  “What everyone sees,” Marina tried to explain, though she knew as she said it that it was, at best, an imprecise answer and, at worst, a falsehood.

  “How much light?” Marina had expected to have to further explain how she could possibly record what everyone sees, but the Turtle Woman seemed contented with her explanation and ready with a different question.

  “Only just the right amount of light will work,” Marina began. “Too much light will make a negative go dark. When I try to make my image from that kind of negative it will appear all white with no detail, no patterns. Not enough light and the negative will appear clear. Then the print will be too dark to see the detail or the pattern.” Marina realized this explanation was probably too complex, but the Turtle Woman seemed to be thinking about it.

  “Then you need some light, and some dark,” she announced, clearly pleased with herself. This was technically not a correct observation, but at a deeper, more essential level, it made perfect sense.

  “Yes,” Marina decided to agree, “some light and some dark.”

  “This is good,” the Turtle Woman responded.

  “Why good?”

  “This is your language,” the Turtle Woman said. She emphasized the last word and Marina remembered that they had used the word in their conversation of the previous night.

  “What do you mean?” Marina asked.

  “You think . . . ,” she hesitated, “you speak to your body in this language.”

  “What language?”

  “Light,” she said as she stood up. “Light and darkness. This is why you are here. This is what you have to heal.”

  “I don’t understand,” Marina said.

  “Too much darkness,” the Turtle Woman said. She laughed a little and smiled, clearly pleased with her discovery. “You have too much darkness. You cannot see the patterns. You cannot see your own image clearly anymore.” Marina was silent. “You rest now. Tomorrow, maybe you will sit up.” As she said this she backed away from Marina with light dancing steps.

  Marina watched the Turtle Woman run to the water. She ran out into the surf until she could run no further. Marina expected to see her dive headfirst into the water, but, instead, she bent at the waist and lowered herself into the water, so that the last thing Marina saw was the turtle-shell tattoo floating just above the water line. Then she was gone.

  Marina became aware of the odor of flowers again, as if the blossoms that had been buried with her were percolating their sweet scent to the surface. Too much darkness, she said to herself as she closed her eyes. Too much darkness.

  Thirst woke her. It was day again and the sun was already high in the sky. Broken sunlight filtered down through the palm fronds and for a while Marina watched the pattern made by the light progress across the sand that covered her.

  Shadows and light, she thought. What it takes to make a pattern.

  It was not by movement and it was not all of a sudden that she became aware of the old turtle woman next to her, for the Turtle Mother, as it now seemed more appropriate to call her, sat so still that she might have been a rock or the brown stump of a cut tree. Marina became aware of her slowly. One moment Marina was alone, the next she was almost certainly alone, then she was in the presence of someone, then the Turtle Mother was with her. All this occurred without word, sign, or movement.

  The Turtle Mother sat cross-legged in the sand, back bowed slightly, hands palm up on her knees. If she breathed, it was with excruciating slowness, for Marina could not see her chest move at all. Her eyes were open, fixed on some point on the horizon. Her face was serene and relaxed, and much closer to the young Turtle Woman she knew from the nights.

  “Please, I’m thirsty,” Marina whispered. “May I have some water?” The Turtle Mother unfurled her right arm slowly and lifted a shell from the sand at her side. She brought it to her own lips and drank. Then she set it back in the sand beside her.

  Marina did not know what to make of this. She had not known the Turtle Mother to be mean spirited. She had only experienced her kindness. She had been frightened by being buried in the sand, but it seemed clear to her now that the woman had meant her no harm. Perhaps, she thought, she did not understand me.

  “May I please have some water?” Marina said a little louder. Again the Turtle Mother lifted the shell and drank herself. Marina could see a rivulet of water run down the Turtle Mother’s chin and trickle between her breasts. She found herself opening and closing her mouth as the Turtle Mother drank. She made little moaning sounds like an infant dependent on a breast or bottle. She was so thirsty.

  The Turtle Mother refilled the shell with water and placed it in the sand over Marina’s heart. Marina wanted to cry. What is the purpose of this? she wondered. Is it not enough that I am trapped here? Must I suffer as well?

  Almost as if in answer to her unspoken question, the Turtle Mother slowly stood up. She stretched lazily, and even this seemed an affront to Marina. She walked down the beach to the water’s edge, then out into the gentle surf. She seemed to walk a long way without disappearing and for a moment, Marina had the impression that the Turtle Mother was walking on the water. Then she bent and lowered herself down as she had the night before disappearing slowly into the calm surf.

  The water was inches from Marina’s mouth. She could almost smell it. This was agony. She was so thirsty and the water so close. Her mouth was dry, her throat burned, her skin itched. Water was the antidote, cool, sweet water, water inside her, water to soothe her skin. It was just within her grasp. If only she could move.

  Wait, she thought. I can feel my skin!

  She had not been able to feel anything against her skin before. She could not even feel dull pressure. Now she could feel a stinging at her thighs. Her skin tingled. She wanted to scratch it, but she was far from irritated by it. It was a confirmation of something. There was some life left in her. Life, she thought, or whatever this is. At least there was some feeling below her head. It was a little thing. She still could not move. She tried. She focused her attention on her legs and willed them to move. She was not buried deeply, and it was only sand. She could break free with even just a little movement, but nothing moved. Still she could feel the skin on her thighs.

  She concentrated on experiencing the burning she felt. She wondered if she could feel anything else, and, for the first time since she had awakened in this strange world, she was aware of her heart beating. She felt it thumping inside her.

  It no longer seemed odd to her that she might be both dead and experience a beating heart at the same time. Death was clearly dreamlike.

  Still, it was her heart she felt, and her heart was a muscle. Maybe there were other muscles she could feel again. She thought she could feel muscles in her neck. She strained and flexed them, and sure enough her head moved just a little.

  She picked a muscle in her neck that she seemed to be able to contract and relax at will. She imagined this muscle plugging into another muscle that ran beneath her skin to her shoulder. She flexed both muscles. Then she imagined that muscle in her shoulder connecting to another muscle in her upper arm. In this manner she slowly built a lifeline of muscle that extended from her jawline to the tip of her right index finger. It was not enough to move an arm, reposition an elbow, o
r shift a shoulder, but when she put her mind behind it and concentrated, she was convinced that she felt her finger move.

  With uncharacteristic patience she brought movement back to her right hand. First she could flex a finger, then two, then she could squeeze a ball of damp sand in her hand. She could open and close her hand and wrap her thumb around to make a fist. She compacted the sand around her hand to create a space, a hand cave that she inhabited with her whole awareness. She felt the roughness of the sand against the back of her hand, and, while it did not hurt, the skin on her hand was sensitive. It was if she had grown new nerve endings for this skin. She remembered how badly burned her skin had been and wondered if with feeling she would also get pain.

  She could move her hand—open and close it and compress the sand into it. Could she dig herself free? She judged the distance she would have to dig. There were eight, maybe twelve inches of sand, some of it moist, but the top half was surely loose and dry.

  She scratched the ceiling of her hand cave. Sand fell around her hand, but not enough to bury it. Slowly she clawed her way up, aware all the time of the great dead weight of her arm. Marina watched the sand that covered her. She saw the first shifting over the place she expected to see her hand. She saw a small crater form, then a finger, then another. Then there was a hand, her hand, and her arm emerging.

  Somehow this image seemed familiar: the single hand clawing its way free of the earth.

  Her arm was more than just dead weight now. It had found strength. It was moving sand aside and she could see from her shoulder to her hand.

  Her skin was greenish black and wrinkled like dried leather. She had a moment of panic, then realized it was the seaweed that the Turtle Mother had wrapped her in. She rested for a moment with the victory of her liberated arm, then she picked up the shell of water and brought it to her lips. Her hand shook and her arm was unsteady. She spilled some of the water down her chin, but she also tasted it. It was warm, but sweet, and she held it in her mouth for a moment before swallowing it. She drained the shell then set about to dig out her other arm.

  She could not really dig into the sand that covered her chest but she pushed it toward her legs the way a dog would dig a hole with two forepaws. It took time because she tired easily, but it was also exhilarating to be doing something after such a period of inactivity and helplessness. She became aware that it was getting darker, as if night and the progress of days had returned with the life in her limbs.

  She carved a depression of sand over her chest and created a small hill over her pelvis. She pushed and scratched her way down to her left hand and met it clawing its way up. To feel both hands touching, to feel with both hands, was like a meeting between two lost friends. Marina laughed out loud.

  She worked her head free of the sand and lifted herself onto her elbows. Most of the sand fell away from her chest and she saw sand-caked patches of seaweed molded about her chest. With great and deliberate effort she began to pull herself backward, up and out of the shallow depression she had been buried in. She grunted and strained and pulled her limp legs out of the sand. She still felt nothing below her waist. She could not make her knees bend or wiggle her toes, but she could feel new power in her spine and neck as she twisted and rolled to free herself.

  Darkness came quickly, and it was a deeper darkness than she had known before. No moon and no stars penetrated the clouds, but there was still enough light for her to see that she had dragged her whole body free of the sand. Content for the moment, she closed her eyes.

  * * *

  “Too much darkness.”

  At first Marina was not certain whether she had thought this or heard it. She opened her eyes in the darkness. She could hear the waves washing ashore maybe fifty yards from her but she could not see them. “Too much darkness.” She heard the voice again and recognized. It was the Turtle Woman, the young one who came at night. She was somewhere behind where Marina lay. “It took a lot of light to bring you out of the earth. Now . . . ,” she paused, “there is too much darkness.”

  “You said there was too much darkness in me. Is that why it is so dark now?” Marina asked.

  The Turtle Woman did not answer right away and when she did speak it was in that hesitant manner she used when trying to find the right way to say a thing.

  “Not a fault, I think. It is a balance. You called on a lot of light for your balance. Now, maybe, you must give some light back.”

  “How do I do that?” The part of Marina that struggled to understand things did not understand this and even before the Turtle Woman could answer she added, “I mean surely this light must be infinite. How could any one person use it up?”

  “The light is always there, but not always for you. You must find the balance.”

  “You mean, I must find more light?”

  “More light now, later, enough light.” The Turtle Woman reached out and stroked Marina’s hair. “It is like this film you think of.” She exaggerated and stretched out the word film. “Too much darkness and this film is sick. But too much light and this film is also not whole. It is not living its purpose.”

  “Are you talking about me?” Marina asked. “Am I the film? I know you said that there was too much darkness in my life, but what good will it do to find light now. I have no life now. I have no purpose to live.” There was a long period of silence.

  “Maybe,” the Turtle Woman finally continued, “you will choose to come again to the living. Maybe you will come this time with balance, with enough light and enough dark to make a whole person.”

  “My heart has no strength for living again.”

  “And yet your heart has the strength for coming out of the sea to this place. Your heart has the strength for coming out of the earth. I think this must be a strong heart.”

  This was all too confusing. She couldn’t stand the thought of being powerless, trapped in the sand, the loss of control, but at the same time she believed that death was the right choice for her. It had not been some quick emotional response to a crisis. Her decision to die had come slowly, over time, in the full light of reason. She had been as ready as anyone could be, she thought, to give up her life. Now she seemed to be in some in-between place where death and life were both options.

  “Yes, this is an in-between place.” The Turtle Woman had plucked the words right from her innermost thoughts. “This is a dreaming place. Maybe you will not decide life or death so quickly here. Maybe you will heal some wounds and then decide which way you will go.” Marina had nothing to say to this. She had no arguments to counter it.

  “Can you sit up?” the Turtle Woman asked.

  She used her arms to push herself into a sitting position and tried to lean forward, but with her legs directly out in front of her she just fell over on the side. She tried again, using her stomach and back muscles to hold herself upright, but she could not seem to find a position of balance. Again she fell over. This time the Turtle Woman came to help her. She lifted Marina up into a sitting position from behind and dragged her onto a little pile of sand. Then she pulled Marina’s limp legs into a crossed posture and steadied her. She wobbled and almost fell several times but Marina found that she could sit up if she held onto her ankles and braced herself with her arms. The Turtle Woman settled in behind her and sat cross-legged with her back against Marina’s, supporting her.

  “Can you see any light?” Marina did not understand what the Turtle Woman meant.

  “Light?”

  “Up there.” The Turtle Woman gestured into the sky.

  “You mean stars? No,” Marina answered, “it’s pitch black.”

  “Look softer. Make the light come to you.”

  “What light? I don’t understand.”

  “Up there, when the clouds break.”

  Marina looked for a long while but saw no break in the rich darkness. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t see anything,” Marina said in frustration.

  “Then just practice sitting. Find your balance point so that y
ou can sit without falling over.” This Marina could do. She had come to know her body more intimately in the last few hours or days or whatever measure of time had elapsed. She could travel within her body and find points and connections. Now she found her balance point, like a pendulum suspended within her body, something pointed her to the center that would keep her perfectly aligned. Slowly, tentatively at first, she removed her hands from her ankles. She tilted, a little uncertainly, then regained her balance point. Next she leaned forward, creating a slight space between her back and the Turtle Woman’s. She was sitting up on her own. She reveled in the accomplishment of it.

  A flicker of light caught her eye, then disappeared. She looked up at the sky. It was as dark as it had been. “Did you see that?” Marina whispered.

  “Yes,” the Turtle Woman whispered back. “It is a good start. Remember to look softly. Maybe you will call some more light to you.”

  Marina relaxed into her sitting. She found she could do this now that she had found a balance point. In fact, she found it was easier to remain balanced if she didn’t think about her balance. She looked up at the sky and half-closed her eyes. She made her focus soft, the way she did when she was photographing and wanted a sense of the balance of light and dark areas in a composition.

  The darkness, which had seemed so solid before, now seemed to be streaming past. She realized that she was looking at clouds moving very fast across the night sky. Once she was aware of this she began to see wispy places where the clouds were not quite as thick. She sent herself out to those places, those gauzy thin patches of cloud, and willed them open. She did not will them with strong intent. She did not try to tear them or rend open spaces with her imagination, but sent herself as a soft breath to disperse the clouds where the clouds themselves were of a mind to be dispersed.

  When she saw her first flash of starlight through the cloud cover, even though it was brief, it made her giggle. The Turtle Woman behind her giggled as well. Marina was stunned by the realization that, however fleetingly, she was happy.