Turtles, poems and other coping mechanisms, featuring work by Susan Baur and Kelly DuMar.
6 minutes
TRANSCRIPT
Sigmund Freud was born May 6, 1856 in Freiberg, Austria. He was trained as a medical doctor, specialized in neurology, and then moved from how the brain physically works to how people make sense of the world based on their individual experiences and perceptions about those experiences. He came up with a whole new way of thinking about the way we think and feel—id, ego, superego, libido, transference, the unconscious. . . And that kind of thinking led to psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.
To celebrate the anniversary of Freud’s birth, a couple pieces by Passager writers who spent at least part of their careers in fields related to psychotherapy.
Susan Baur is a retired psychologist and science writer. Here are excerpts from her memoir “In the Company of Turtles.”
Late one afternoon, I went for a swim in a wooded pond on Cape Cod in eastern Massachusetts. I had a goal. Seeing unmistakable signs of aging in my 63-year-old body and mind, I was determined to swim so hard and so often that I would remain strong and self-sufficient – forever. I could not imagine being happy any other way.
. . . Wearing a mask and snorkel, I could see every rock, stick, and minnow as I glided over them. Reentering the shadows, I couldn’t see anything until my eyes slowly adjusted to the dim, unpunctuated light. Yet here I had the sensation of being in the water like a fish. I was part of the pond.
. . . Hardly had I turned around, however, when there in front of me, hanging a foot below the surface, were two small, gray turtles.
. . . They looked straight at me. I could see their round, black eyes shifting as they sized me up. Like five-inch long astronauts, their movements were effortless. With the merest flick of a fan-shaped foot, one turtle approached my hand which I cautiously made into a fist. The other drifted to my shoulder. As I held my breath, it floated over my upper arm then slid to my wrist as if I were a slide on a playground. I could feel its bottom shell bumping lightly down my arm.
. . . “You are perfect,” I thought, as the turtle glided off my fingertips and smoothly extended its neck like a periscope to breathe. And I was perfect too. Wonderstruck, as long as I gazed at these turtles, everything in the world was just as it should be.
. . . By the end of that summer, I was so hooked on turtles that my well-being seemed to depend on seeing at least one a day. They did more than distract me from the anxieties of aging. If I could discover how they fit so perfectly into their world in all weathers and all seasons, maybe I could figure out how to fit into my world as I aged. Thus at the age of 63, I set off in the company of turtles to find a new way to be happy.
Susan Baur from the brand new issue of Passager, Issue 78. By the way, Susan painted the picture that’s on that issue’s cover.
Kelly DuMar said this next poem was written in response to the death of Russian Opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, and his mother’s heroic fight to reclaim her son’s body from prison officials.
“Dear Lyudmila Navalnaya, Please”
forgive me for writing to you
while you are in the Arctic Circle
fighting for your only son, his body.
Forgive me for mentioning mine –
I gave birth in 1987 –
– How old was yours when he received his calling?
Because I am reminded of a walk,
an afternoon, our tree-lined street.
Mine was 8. I know what I want to do
when I grow up.
You can imagine how eager I was –
so ready, I was, to encourage him! Skinny
he was, ribs showing. Unmuscular –
but feet so fast with a soccer ball. He was
not a small delivery –
– How much did your son, at birth, weigh?
Mine was late – 2 weeks plus 2 days –
8 lbs/11 ozs – sucked out terribly, ragged episiotomy –
Yours – was it torn, stitched up?
My boy’s plan slipped out shy –
Yours – was he, from beginning, undoubting?
– I want to grow up to fight bad guys.
Oh.
Brave and sweet, a noble idea – I kept
my mouth shut.
But the problem, he said,
is how to see myself winning.
From Passager’s 2024 Poetry Contest Issue, Kelly DuMar’s poem “Dear Lyudmila Navalnaya, Please.” Kelly is a former psychotherapist and a certified psychodramatist, and has worked with psychologists and therapists in war zones, including Ukraine and Israel.
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For Kendra, Mary, Christine, Rosanne, and the rest of the Passager staff, I’m Jon Shorr.
Due to the limitations of online publishing, poems may not appear in their original formatting.
Phyllis Carito
I love the essence of feeling in the swimming with turtles. You took us there with you.
As a parent, a mother, an appreciation of our hopes and support for our sons… and the unbearable loss of them. I liked the conversational tone in the poem.