Spring. Evening. Approaching town in a hurry by car, I lean into the curve that emerges from the woods just before crossing a culvert that spans a tiny stream. Thirty yards ahead a woman with one arm extended scurries across the road. I tap the brakes, slow down to look as she reaches the road’s shoulder that drops off toward the stream. Across the road her car idles, its flashers on.

In her hand is a medium-sized turtle, and she bends over the bank’s slope, places the turtle there, then straightens and looks out to the where the water snakes into the woods. The turtle takes a step and disappears downhill into the grass.

I cruise into town, still decelerating, and, as I slow, an image from an old walk in a cranberry bog rises from memory’s soup. It lays a claw over consciousness’ rim and climbs out like a turtle.

There in vision’s sidebar is movement, a stone walking impossibly over the flat bog. It tilts to shift a leg forward, and, as it does, my mind finds the familiar: snapping turtle. They are on the move, and, as I circle the gravel path with my dog, we see four more snappers between 8 and 12 inches in diameter hunkered down in depressions, claws hugging the ground, laying white eggs in the dark earth.

By the time I reach home, the story of the scene I’ve just witnessed is complete. The woman has rescued the turtle from one of our fast lanes and carried her to safety. I park and start walking. I think about what it means to stop for turtles.

I suppose the woman was hurrying, too. It seems we always are. Still, when she shifted her foot to the brake, and, at least temporarily, chose the reptile over her destination, I say she became more herself, that is, more fully human. Of course, she stands in stark contrast to those drivers who veer to hit what they catch in the scopes of their eyes or headlights, but she also offers a change from the rest of us, too, the passersby.

Bypassing is one of our national habits. Who among us has not mastered the art of averting his or her eyes when street people approach? How adept the studied disconnection of bus and subway riders when an older person hobbles in and must stand. How poor our hearing when violence erupts. How quickly we pass by turtles in the road.

To reach down and lift, by its rough-edged carapace, the kin of snake to safety is to reach across an ancient breach, to remedy in part a story of human separation and disconnection from nature that we’ve told since Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

Such a choice on this or any other road, mindful of the turtle’s beak and hooked nails, careful of the oncoming traffic, joins one with another. In that moment we stop passing by; we stop wandering; we come home.

Big night crossings

At some point, when this winter relents and its renewed ice thaws, spring’s amphibians will announce, “Now’s the time; let’s go.” And they will set out on a warmish rainy night for the vernal pools and slow water where they regenerate. Such a night is a big night … for the amphibians and the people who would see them thrive.

Road crossings on such nights can be ribbons of trouble as cars hurry along them and amphibians try to hop, crawl or wiggle their way across. Celebrants of the big night spend their hours counting and, in some instances, assisting amphibians at these crossing points.

Many towns have groups that set out into the darkness to witness this regenerative spring rite. One such group is Maine Big Night, and they monitor various routes and crossings as well as offering training for volunteers. Similar to the woman in the story above, Big Nighters would have the human touch, be life enhancing.

Sandy Stott is a Brunswick resident, chair of the town’s Conservation Commission, chair of The Mere Brook Steering Committee, and a member of Brunswick Topsham Land Trust’s Board of Directors. He writes for a variety of publications. He may be reached at fsandystott@gmail.com.