From a distance it looked like a big rock had rolled onto the pathway. And then it moved.
Grabbing the binoculars I zeroed-in and then realized that this rock had a little face peering out of it. I was looking at the ancient visage of a tortoise. Shouting to the others around me, we quietly, slowly crept over to this sleeping relic catching some early morning rays—her compact shell a study in mosaic and tile artistry the likes of which no human could ever replicate. This was surely the prototype of the first mobile home. Suddenly, her small eyes blinked back at me—looking ever so ET-ish. Her little pointed nose and wrinkled, grey neck slowly…tenuously beginning to find the courage to stretch out. She took our breath away.
How old was she? How long had she called this desert world her home?
Granted, we didn’t know what gender she was but somehow she had a “she-ness” that resonated. Quick! Tortoises love lettuce! Go grab some. We put some fresh leaves in front of her and that seemed a signal for her to go. These humans were annoying and that green stuff had none of the appeal of the brittle cacti and desert tufts of tumbleweed that provided her substance. And, she just might have eaten a few weeks ago and still wasn’t hungry. (Maybe I should have a copy of the tortoise diet!) And, with that, she extended her chunky legs—looking like miniature elephant feet and as silently as she appeared she slowly began her journey as far away from us—and as fast—as a tortoise can go. And just beyond her glistening shell, two long ears bounced into view and then bounced away. A hare. We had just seen a tortoise and a hare.
Hours ago (or was it years?) I was in the middle of meetings and deadlines and fighting traffic and that pounding headache that would migraine away at me to the point of exhaustion. And now I was here in the most amazing desert vacation retreat in the world, watching a tortoise being a tortoise. And a hare being a hare in the middle of Nirvana. I had been rescued by Joshua Tree Oasis — where humans and non-humans co-exist in such environmentally peaceful acceptance of each other. And I didn’t even care where the finish line began or ended.
