ugly ass turtles
and balls on ice
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It’s sea turtle season here on the island. It’s the time of year when the sea calms down and the beaches grow, preparing for hundreds of sea turtles to come ashore and lay their eggs.
Most nights on my fearless walk home, I stop to sit awhile on the sea wall behind my house and I wait for a sea turtle to come ashore and lay her eggs. In the past, there were always volunteers down on the beach below, safeguarding the turtle’s path and then whisking the eggs away as quickly as they could plop steaming hot (I’m assuming) into the sand to bring them to a government-run sanctuary to make sure they had a fighting chance to hatch and survive.
They were fierce, those volunteers, never hesitating to yell at a dumb tourist (it me!) for taking pictures and scaring away the turtles with her flash. But they aren’t there anymore (translation: ain’t dere no more). For some reason, the government shut the turtle sanctuary down and now there’s no one but me yelling at the dumb tourists.
I’ve had a thing for turtles for a minute. I low key fancy myself a turtle—perhaps because I also have a small head, a propensity to snap, and am quick to hide.
My turtle origin story begins a few years ago in downtown New Orleans. One day, I was leaving my office building in the CBD to meet up with a friend during my lunch break. I had just walked out the door, when a man approached me and called me an ugly ass turtle.
Specifically, he yelled in my face, “I DON’T WANT TO FUCK YOU, YOU UGLY ASS TURTLE.”
Somehow, he saw my innate turtle-ness and called it forth. Perhaps because I was wearing a velvet, green top with tiny little puff sleeves. Or perhaps because he doesn’t like to fuck turtles and was reminded of that when he saw me, a woman he also did not want to fuck.
Who’s to say?
Whatever the reason, I’ve been turting around ever since.
My favorite part about watching a sea turtle come ashore is how she appears out of nowhere as a wave recedes, does her business, and then later disappears again as another wave advances. As lumberous as an elephant while on sand, the second the water hits, she’s an aquatic gazelle and she’s gone. No sign remains of her except for the eggs left behind.
Or not.
Sometimes, mama turt comes to shore, takes a look around and says “nah” before peacing back out into the ocean, hard passing on motherhood.
As a turt, I still don’t know which mothering category I fall into, the “will move sand mountains to have a kid” or the “nah” one. Although I should probably figure it out because I’m turting 40 this year.
This past May, my biological alarm clock went off after being snoozed for years and I went to a fertility doctor to see about freezing my eggs. The fert (turt?) doc is an old friend of mine who I haven’t seen in years. When he saw me walk in for my first consult, he yelled clear across the nurse’s station, “I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU SINCE YOU WERE DRINKING AMARETTO SOURS AT HYDE PARK!” And then since he had so appropriately aged me, he didn’t really have to ask what I was doing there.
We sat in his office to chat, and after he gave me the general run through, he asked if I had any questions or concerns. I told him I had reservations about undergoing this procedure in Louisiana.
“Don’t worry,” he replied quickly. He knew exactly what my concern was. “You’re only freezing eggs, not embryos. Embryos are where you get into trouble here.” An embryo is a “life” according to Louisiana law, so embryos apparently have a mind (and a heartbeat?) of their own and unused ones cannot be so easily discarded.
I told the turt/fert doc I would think about it and then went home and called my boyfriend to fill him in. I hadn’t discussed my fertility plans with him—because they were my eggs and my plans—and I was happy to find him supportive, albeit surprised. But mostly he was just amused because we primarily speak in Spanish, and since I didn’t realize the Spanish language differentiates between human eggs and animal eggs, I just used the word for animal eggs, which also happens to be a euphemism in Spanish for testicles. So, instead of having a serious conversation about what freezing my eggs might mean for us as a couple, we couldn’t stop giggling about me saying I was thinking of putting my balls on ice.
I eventually decided against the procedure, primarily because the cost was prohibitive, and I don’t have that kind of money. But there was also a small part of my decision-making process deeply affected by what was happening politically in that moment. I had my consult just a week before HB 813 sailed through committee, which classified abortion as a homicide punishable by life in prison, made certain fertility treatments illegal (the whole embryo thing again) and banned certain birth controls, effectively restricting birthing people’s choices in all aspects of having or not having a kid. It was eventually pulled by the author, Little bitch Danny, after it was amended to not criminalize women enough to his liking, but this was also when the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade was imminent and the writing was on the wall. And something about being told that there could be a scenario in which I could be forced to have a baby made the election to voluntarily have a baby a little harder to swallow. Especially in a procedure that was protected and enshrined in moral code because it erred on the side of “life.”
As I continue to consider motherhood, it still causes concern. Because now, in a post-Roe world, a geriatric pregnancy (which is what I would have) could cause complications and making timely decisions to protect the “life” of the mother (me) could be delayed by physicians fearing legal ramifications, as we’ve already seen across the country. And that terrifies the fuck out of me.
And it doesn’t seem like they’re intent on stopping anytime soon in the quest to repeal our bodily autonomy. Five out of seven of the Louisiana Congressional delegation just voted against enshrining the right to contraception nationwide.
Where does that end? How far do they want to go?
We just don’t have any protection.
The beach behind my house is kind of hard to access. The sea wall was crumbled by Hurricane Wilma years ago and there’s no direct route to the sand, but I still sometimes find my way down there to be alone and collect seashells. It’s quiet and serene and beautiful.
It’s also prime turt territory, which in the past meant nothing more than seeing giant crates in the sand where the turtles had nestled in the night before to lay their eggs, which were long gone by morning, already taken to safety at the turtle sanctuary, the mother turtles happily back in the sea. But now it means hundreds of flies and broken eggshells, left alone and unprotected, crushed by predators and eaten by birds. The other morning, a sea turtle, who for some reason couldn’t make her way back to the water after laying her eggs, was found dead on the beach. Left to rot. Left with no protection.
Hits a little too close to home.
I guess I’ll just pull myself up by the bootstraps and continue to protect myself.
That guy kept yelling at me after he told me he didn’t want to fuck me, so I crossed the street to get away from him, falling in step next to a young guy with earphones in. I was scared and asked if he could just walk with me for a minute until my harasser got bored and went away, but he either ignored me or didn’t hear me. When I got to the other side of the street, I crouched behind a utility box as the dude still railed against me, caddy corner now. I hid from his view and ate a packet of cheese and peanut butter crackers to pass the time, wishing someone would put his balls on ice.
Later, when I finally made it back to the office, I told one of the guys I worked with about what happened, and he told me about the one time a woman harassed him and I’m just really glad he’s ok.
I’m still thinking about becoming a mother—maybe someday in the distant future when I’ve matured enough to not giggle about putting my balls on ice—but I have no delusions about what that could possibly mean for me or my body in a time where my protections are limited and my doctor and I don’t have the latitude to make a plan that works for me and could possibly save my life.
It’s not so bad here behind this utility box. It’s painted now, so at least it’s pretty. And I have plenty of cheese and peanut butter crackers to last me for a while.
nah brah business:
