Heart of the Turtle

As I lay there my mind swims through thoughts. I feel the cool dark earth on my bare skin. The deep lake blue tarp that covers my lean to waves in the warm breeze. Memories of my childhood in Michigan floods in. Water is a common counterpart to these memories. Rock hunting agates and swimming in icy Lake Superior. Watching freightors pass by along the banks of the Detroit River sounding their bellowing horns. Heads bobbing up and down in the waves of Lake Michigan. Endless hours of underwater handstands and pretending to be a mermaid in pools, lakes...water.

Nightime.

I get up and stretch. It's time to get a move on. Nights are the new day for me. Day is too hot and dangerous for travel. I pack up my belongings - not much as I have to carry it all on my back. I can't believe I fantasized about hiking the Appalacian trail!

The last items I pack up are the most important to my survival. My wood grain Buck knife, mapbook, compass, and a necklace holding two charms. A small golden circle with the "hang loose" shaka symbol embossed and a heart shaped locket with a tiny photo of my family back in the great lakes state. All of these items are from my father. He would rest easy knowing how useful everything had become.

All my years have been filled with the journey to find me...to find happiness, adventure, love. I steel myself for the long walk ahead today by repeating my mantra that this is just another leg of that journey. By daybreak I've made it to what I think may be the edge of the hot zone. The land is beginning to flatten out and I can see for miles. I spot a gas station sign like a beacon in the distance. I have to hustle to beat the sun peeking up in the East. I walk up cautiously- if those zombie TV shows taught me anything it's to be wary of other people. It's wild west ghost town style dusty and empty of life. I grab bottles of water, jerky, and a kings ransom of granola bars. As much as I can carry. I never know when I will get this lucky again. I can count on one hand the times I've found a good cache in a store on my travels and I started this trek in California. As I bed down to survive the heat of the day under my trusty tarp I pull out my map. I've made it to the three corners a crossways of Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska. I lean against the cool glass of the refridgerator door and pull out my trusty map book. I plot out the roads I will travel in the days to come and drift to sleep. In my dreams I get glimpses of my Father sitting at the dining room table pouring over maps. Leaning in and commiting to memory the turns that would take us to Grandmas or rock beaches.

Years before the shift I had left home in search of adventure and arrived in California. I made the trek from Michigan to the West Coast in my 2012 fire bright race red Hatchback filled to the brim with my belongings. Armed with my very own Atlas, a gift from Dad. It was a different world before the Climate Shift turned it upside down. I was chasing teenage fantasies. I surfed, went on taco crawls, swam in the ocean...

The shift happened hard and fast. Temperatures and tides rose. Fires spread like crazy. I had always thought of climate change as this slow trudging thing. Something happening- yes, but something stoppable. The earth had it's own timeline.

In the days leading up to the blackouts I watched reports of massive hurricanes in the south and epic tornados ripping through a large stetch of states being dubbed the New Alley. Temps were record breaking hot everywhere in the west and at first it was all jokes and memes about the heat. It only took a few weeks for the oven-like temperatures to ignite Cali in a blanket of fire. Water became scarce. People panicked. Then there came the blackout. No power, no cellphones, no running water, no fuel. I was scared. One of the last times I spoke to Dad back in Michigan he told me to get myself home no matter what. That is what I am doing now. I got my pioneer pants on and started the trek back to Michigan.

The weeks through the Alley the skies were always filled with storm clouds. Clouds that would have had my parents standing on the porch as emergency alerts interupted my cartoons. Most of the time there was a tinge of green to the air like there was an invisible dome of neon uranium glass overhead. I arrived in a city at the bottome of Lake Michigan. Mishi Gami or Great Water to the Ojibwe. It was an industrial iron and cement filled wasteland. The ghosts of all the blue collar factory laborers moving like a colony of worker ants coming and going. A van abandonded on the highway was a nice place to rest for the night. It reminded me of my Dad's old brown van. He'd always make a bed in the back for the middle of the night trips home from Grandma's. Laying there in the back listening to the sounds of the road, Dad with his window down smoking cigarettes to keep awake. Those were the good old days. I would be crossing into Michigan soon. From there the highways become familiar, almost home.

Walking, thinking, sleeping. This is what fills my days. Only stopping to check rest stops and gas stations to refill my pack. Sometimes I get lucky and find delivery trucks abandoned along the freeway and I'm reminded of a scene in a zombie apocalypse movie. Woody Harrelson plays a Twinkie obsessed hero who risks life and limb in his search for the cream filled sponge cake. I can relate.

I leave the highways behind and travel the familiar country roads that will lead me home. It is humid and makes me think of how Michigan was once a Tropical Sea. Tangible evidedince in the fossils of coral reefs found along the shores of Lake Michigan. A turtle disappears into a swamp on the side of the road. I remember an old story about the Americas being an old turtle and Michigan being it's heart. Turtles feel like a good sign. I remember as a little girl when Dad super glued and duct taped a giant turtles back that had been run over. He let it live under his art desk until it was healed enough to return to nature.

I wake up with the birds in the bright black morning light. This will be the last leg of this journey. Home is within reach. The Earth, like a sunflower following the sun, the circle continues. I turn onto my childhood street surrounded by familiar trees and houses. I see our old oak trees shading the porch. Remembering Dad there smoking his cigar leaning over the Detroit Free Press and watching the hummingbirds. As I set my pack down in my yard I feel the locket swing close to my heart.

Home.