(Over the course of the next year I plan to share one story per week. Ultimately, I may finish the project earlier if moments of inspiration hit and I’m able to write more than one story every 7 days. Throughout my creative career I’ve been plagued with the unfortunate habit of rarely finishing projects. I’ll get them 80% of the way there and then fail to close the distance on the final 20% due to a fear of the project not being “perfect”. This has always been problematic and I’m hoping this story-a-week project will help me works out the kinks and actually finish a few projects. This first story is a great example: the grammar is not great, sentence structure very repetitive, and essentially a non-ending. Again, all obvious problems, but I’m overcome the largest; at least the story is out there.)
If you’ve spent any amount of time in Rockford, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of, or at the very least, would recognize Aldeen park given its large, earthen dam. In a previous life, the dam was a notorious sledding hill and the site where graduating seniors from the area’s high schools would come and throw paint at each other. However, for me, my experience with Aldeen was always a bit different; my adventures began in the woods that surrounded the dam.
When I was young, so young I only am aware this occurred because my parents told me so, my brother, Colin, and I would run the trails of Aldeen. Apparently, we would try and shimmy up the trunks of the trees as they shed their leaves and jump off of small rocks which we perceived as large boulders. My mom tells me that this was a yearly tradition, Colin and I running through the woods, seemingly creating our first impressions of the natural world.
But after that, I didn’t do much else at Aldeen until I was 16 years old. That year, I started my first job working as an assistant leader at a day-camp called Nature Quest. The purpose of the camp, based on my foggy recollection of a brochure that was outdated when I found it in 2012, was to introduce kids from Rockford to the outdoors through a variety of activities like hiking, archery, and daily lunches cooked over an open fire. What they did not advertise, and what I was not aware of until I began working, was that Aldeen was the home to an impossibly large, like the size of a garbage can lid, snapping turtle.
I think it’s important to note that this turtle is not something that’s regularly advertised and I’m not certain how many people are actually aware it exists. For me, I was told of the turtle during my first few weeks at Nature Quest by one of the leaders, Forrest (aptly named). Again, the size he described, or at least, what I understood, was preposterous. This wasn’t because snapping turtles don’t grow that big but rather entirely based on the size of its supposed home, Keith creek which is approximately 8-10 feet wide (generous) with 1-2 feet of consistent water depth (again, generous estimation). Swimming would be nearly impossible; the turtle would have to wade wherever it went.
**Now, based on my own memory, I thought the turtle, as told, was roughly the size of a garbage can lid. However, a recent Instagram conversation between Forrest and myself leads me to believe that the turtle was the size of a large dinner plate. Realistically, the actual size of the turtle is inconsequential, what matters is my belief in the turtle at all.
It’s hard to explain but something in me wanted to believe this turtle existed. I thought that maybe the size was exaggerated but the turtle itself had to be real. I mean, why lie about a giant turtle? What’s the payoff? So, like any person who was told of a near-mystical creature, I began my search. Some mornings I would ride my bike to work early and go for a quick hike on the trail along the creek. In all of these morning hikes I never saw the turtle, really, I never saw any turtle. Yes, I saw creek chubs, and hawks, and on a single occasion, a mink swimming in a deep pool. But, none lessened my desire to find the turtle.
Whenever it was time to take my campers on a hike, I would tell them about the turtle and to keep their eyes peeled when we were near the creek. However, over time, as the weeks passed, the turtle’s grasp on my psyche softened and my active search ceased. I, like many of the kids who I told of the turtle, began to believe that it did not exist. How could it?
This feeling continued and I quickly saw the end of my first summer of work and, as swiftly as the first summer was finished, so too were my second and third. Sadly, none of those 24 cumulative weeks of work led to a turtle sighting. Looking back, my enthusiasm for the turtle waned with my enthusiasm to work. By my fourth summer at Nature Quest I knew that I needed a change and planned to work a different job the following summer. And with my time at Aldeen drawing to a close, I re-initiated the quest for the turtle. Though it all seemed to be in vane, the turtle had other plans.
I finally saw the turtle during my last week of work at Nature Quest on our last all-hike. I was near the back of the line of our 60 campers as we breached the tree line and walked out across the top of the Aldeen dam. As a we walked along the crest, I looked down to our left at the slightly flooded Keith creek. There, in the pool, was a dark figure floating near the surface of the water in a location that never occurred to me to look. After collecting myself, it was obvious that it was a turtle, and not just any turtle, but the very turtle I had sought for the last four years. I stopped walking and looked at the creature as it slowly kicked its legs out to tread water. For a brief moment it seemed to pause at the surface of the water then deliberately sink into the murky water of the pool until it disappeared. Just like that, the turtle and I had our moment. It was real.