A great time to break out of our shells

This time of year, the world feels so much bigger. Have you noticed?

I don’t think it’s just me. I watch the way people carry themselves as they walk down the street, or through the mall, or push their carts through the grocery store.

You can see it in the way we go outdoors to find the fresh air. And dig our fingers in the ground to get the gardens ready.

We’re anxious to shake off that closed-in feeling that settles on us in the winter.

May makes us realize we want more. When my children were young, we found a little box turtle in the back yard – a common enough creature in the South, where we lived.

For a long time he lived in a small glass fish tank on a shelf in the kitchen. He had rocks to climb on and cool, rich soil to burrow into.

We fed him lettuce and carrots and other vegetables, and when the family sat at the table we watched him. He ate what we fed him and spent his days moving slowly around his tiny world.

He seemed, to us, to be content.

Then, one late spring day, we took the turtle outside and put him in the grass. For a treat.

He didn’t move for a minute, but finally, as though just comprehending that he was free, the turtle started crawling.

A few steps and then a long look around. A few more steps and another look.

Then, unexpectedly, the turtle lunged and snapped up an earthworm that had just wriggled to the surface and gobbled it down greedily.

A few more lumbering steps and he found another worm and did the same thing. We were surprised by the usually placid turtle’s ferocity. He ate and ate and ate.

“Look at that,” I thought, “All this time he was hungry and we never knew it.”

We put him back in his glass cage, and for a few days after that we gathered worms and crickets and other insects for him. He always went after our offerings.

But it was never the same after seeing the turtle back in the place it should have been all along.So, against the protests of the children, we let him go.

I watched him move away from us, into the underbrush. Back to the all-you-can-eat wild.

Every now and then, when I see an opportunity pop up suddenly in front of me and I surprise myself by taking it, I realize that, like the little turtle, I was hungry but didn’t know it.

I’d gotten used to walls that let me see everything going on around me but wouldn’t let me take a bite. I’d forgotten what I could do.

This time of year, when the sky looks as far away as anything can get, and the sun comes back and feels so warm on our backs, suddenly, we are all like the little turtle that lived too long in a box in my kitchen.

Suddenly, a little world with a big view just isn’t enough.