Stop and smell the... reptile

What a crazy time of year! For those of you who celebrate Rosh Hashanah and honor Yom Kippur, I hope your holidays were wonderful, meaningful and filled with family. It always feels like the High Holidays have come out of nowhere because I am so busy doing, working and living; the summer ends and all I can focus on are all the things I have planned for the fall and then, all of a sudden, the holidays are here. It's a good thing though. As much as I like to stay focused on the finish line, it's so necessary to take a break, a full break without the phone, tv, email, or Facebook, and really take some time to meditate on the past year. It's a time to realize the mistakes we've made, the accomplishments we've had, correct our wrongs and make a promise to have more accomplishments and fewer mistakes next year. Isn't that a great way for everyone to celebrate the new year?

On Saturday, I was about to start cooking eggs for brunch when I looked out the window and saw a little turtle walking up our driveway. Now, we have a lot of wildlife in our neighborhood including a stray cat and her kitten who decided to take up residence outside our house for a few weeks. The list also includes, owls, opossum, geese, ducks, squirrels, chipmunks... But a turtle?! That was new. There is a stream right across from our house and with all the rain, the stream overflowed and the streets were covered in water. Thank goodness we are on a hill and didn't experience any damage from all the flooding, but this little guy must have been looking for something, maybe food, maybe a dry place to rest, but he had no idea he was walking onto the driveway of a photographer with a love for turtles. As soon as I saw him, I ran out to see him. I didn't touch him or try to pick him up because I feel that he's a wild animal (I mean, reptile) and just because I'm higher on the food chain doesn't mean that I should do whatever I want with him. Nick suggested we make him our pet, but I don't think that putting him into a 10-gallon fish tank or even creating an outdoor home for him is really a nice way to live. Don't get me wrong, I've had pets, including turtles, and pets are wonderful but for some reason, I felt that since he's lived his whole life in the wild, I have no right to take him out of that just for my own satisfaction. But what I did do is grab my camera, and Nick grabbed our new Flip HD video camera and captured the little guy.

I think the timing of his arrival was great. The New Year is a time of reflection, meditation and renewal and what better way to symbolize that than by observing something new in nature in your environment. It's amazing what we can see if we just stop every once in a while and look around, and respect nature and all it has to offer us.