Cold-Stunned

Sea Turtles and I Have Something in Common

My friend is coming off a lousy divorce. It’s freezing outside, and she’s walking along an empty stretch of beach in Nantucket, near the house she fought to keep in the lousy divorce. I’m on my own prosaic walk in my neighborhood, listening to her tell me about how on this beach, sea turtles have washed up, cold-stunned. They are cold-stunned because of the unusually warm autumn, which confused them so they didn’t swim south in time, and the water temperatures have dropped. Sea turtles can’t handle water below 50 degrees. They get lethargic, lose their ability to swim. They just float on the tide and during winter storms the waves slam them to shore. Well-meaning folks walking the beach throw them back. This, of course, is disastrous.

As she is telling me this, it occurs to me that at this moment, I am chilled to the bone and, thanks to COVID, wary/unable to travel to more temperate climes. I am floating on the tide of a frigid January afternoon, nose streaming, unable to feel my fingers or toes.

But back to the sea turtles. Those who are saved are sent to aquariums for rehabilitation before being released into warmer ocean waters. I think of this as I head into an Arctic blast to make my way back home. Some number of my adult children are inside, and I hear their conversation, punctuated by laughter. I float through the scent of buttered toast to the kitchen, knowing that weeks of winter lie ahead, no doubt including cold-shock days when I’ll find myself riding the tide, even slamming into shore. I know that these days hold the potential for me to become weary, disoriented, but I also know that over time, I have learned to reach out, find warmth, and keep rescuing myself.