• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Eleni Gage

Author, Journalist, Pop Folklorist

  • About
  • Books
    • Lucky In Love
    • The Ladies of Managua
    • Other Waters
    • North of Ithaka
  • Blog
  • Articles
    • Travel
    • Essays and Reviews
    • Lifestyle
  • Talks
    • Book Clubs
  • Contact

Of Turtles and Transitions

January 18, 2011 by admin |

So, today I woke up thinking about turtles. But that’s not where the story starts. It starts over a decade and a half ago when I was on a beach on the island of Zakynthos and the toothless, but nevertheless oddly handsome, man renting out beach chairs started chatting up my mom. He told us that the beach was a nesting ground for carretta carretta turtles, which swim across from Africa to lay their eggs in its sands. At night, in hatching season, masses of baby turtles hatch and climb all over each other to get out of their sandy nest. They proceed to toddle down the beach to the shore, where they will then swim to Africa and join the adult carretta carrettas, returning when and if it is time for them to lay eggs on this same, predestined beach. This strenuous migration is what the turtles do, it’s their dharma.

Anyway, the toothless hunk reminisced about turtle hatchings he’d seen in his day, and he told us it’s a very perilous toddle to the sea, because birds swoop down and eat the baby turtles, whose shells are not yet hard enough to repel the birds’ beaks, as they make their way to shore. It suspected he was just trying to impress my mom with his sensitivity in caring about the turtles’ plight. But I later had this story confirmed when I watched a video of Suddenly Last Summer, the lurid Katharine Hepburn-Elizabeth Taylor-Montgomery Clift adaptation of the Tennessee Williams one-act. Parallels are drawn between what happens to bird-ravaged baby sea turtles and the fate that befalls the Katharine Hepburn’s character’s beloved son, Sebastian. (She goes totally nutso and gives an over the top speech which involves her eerie, shaky voice repeating, “Violet and Sebastian! Sebastian and Violet!” again and again. It’s just about the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.)

So, the Zakynthian beach chair lord was telling the truth. He also revealed that, as a boy, he would pick up the poor turtles and carry them to sea, to make sure they made it aive. But he later learned that this act of mercy was harming the turtles, not helping them; they need the strenuous toddle to the sea in order to build up their leg (fin?) muscles for the long swim ahead. It’s the transition between land and sea that’s important, that prepares them for what’s ahead.

And the reason I was thinking about said turtles this morning is partly because I’m obsessed with transitions, and partly because I recently watched baby sea turtles toddle to see in Nicaragua, on another fateful beach. But I was also thinking about how I myself need a slow transition into my day. See, in New York, the sun would come through the Greek lace curtains in the bedroom of my 19th floor apartment and wake me up. Here in Miami Beach, we live on the ground floor, surrounded by palm trees and other tropical green things. The little jungle courtyard in front of our bedroom is a delight, but it blocks the sun. Being jolted awake by the chipper but evil sound of my husband’s cell phone alarm was not having a beneficial effect on my mood. So I asked Santa for a sunrise alarm clock, which mimics the effects of dawn, slowly illuminating the room, growing ever brighter, until the room is light and filled with the sound of (fake) birds chirping.

This morning I realized that the gradual alarm is my toddle to the sea. I need it before I embark on my daily swim to Africa. When I was a folk and myth major, my BFF Nathan and I used to say we were “liminal and loving it”. Thanks to my extended transition, during the fake dawn of every morning, that statement is now true again.

Filed Under: travel Tagged With: Greece, movies, Nicaragua

Primary Sidebar

Get lucky!

Subscribe to my blog,
theliminalstage for
updates, articles, and
auspicious rituals.

Eleni Gage

About Eleni

The daughter of a Greek father and a Minnesotan mother. I grew up in Athens, Greece, and the suburbs of Worcester, Massachusetts—
and became obsessed with cultural rituals and traditions along the way.

read more

Lucky in Love

is a guide to planning a wedding that’s unique, meaningful, and, above all, auspicious, with the help of customs from all over the world

Buy Now

Latest Blog Posts

Memories, Mansplaining, and the Bestseller I Never Wrote

A couple of weeks ago I woke up thinking about a man who is not my husband. He's someone I went out with over a decade ago and there was no reason he ...

Read more about Memories, Mansplaining, and the Bestseller I Never Wrote

Young Love: Spellbound by Syros

The challenge of travel, for me, is time. My nostalgia vein runs deep, so I constantly want to return to the places I love, and when I'm there, I ...

Read more about Young Love: Spellbound by Syros

Footer

Travel Writing

I love covering places that inspire me—from Greece to Nicaragua and everywhere in between—for outlets such as Travel+Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, InStyle and more. Join me on my trips here.

 

Essays and Reviews

From parenting to politics to pop culture, I’ve got opinions —and I’m not afraid to share them in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. Learn why I’m a bad mom here.

Lifestyle Articles

I may not always live my best life, but I’m trying to live a better one! I enjoy learning from the experts when writing about everything from reading more to wasting less. Pick up some tips here.

Copyright © 2023 Eleni Gage. All Rights Reserved.