🌱 Community turtle

Everyone needs a Testudo

In front of McKeldin Library is a bronze statue of a turtle perched on a waist-high limestone base. Testudo, the school’s mascot, is about five feet long. He must feel safe because today his head is out, snout lifted as if sniffing the cool autumnal air. His head is polished bright, having been rubbed by many thousands of hands.

A student paused just now to rub Testudo’s snout. The gesture is almost affectionate. The turtle’s patterned body and legs are not so visible today because he is covered in bouquets of flowers. There’s even a fluted glass vase of pale pink roses set beside his left rear foot. To each side of the base, someone has taped a single 8-1/2 x 11 paper. Bold text proclaims, “Mental Health Resources,” followed by many lines of text and a QR code.

A precious member of our community fell to earth yesterday from the north side of the football stadium, the side facing the dorms. As students hurried from dining hall lunches to afternoon classes, a young person in crisis climbed, step after step after concrete step to arrive at the top for their final act as a student. As a human.

Every community needs a Testudo, a sacred center, a beating heart where broken hearts can pause, offer a word, read a note, or simply be with others. I pull a 3 x 5 index card from my bag, the same cards we use for two-minute self-portraits at the start of my Wednesday morning class. I write the message, “You are not alone,” and anchor its corner beside Testudo’s tail with a small stone left by another.

Now a student guide pauses his tour for prospective students and parents to tell them about the library. How many floors of stacks, how many books. We’re part of the Big-10, not just for sports, but you can request a book from any of those schools, should the need arise. What must be going through his mind? Their minds? The preciousness of life? Are they remembering a time when they felt alone and afraid?

The chapel bell is ringing the noon hour at the other end of the long, wide, grassy, open-sky McKeldon Mall.

Now the tour guide is telling them about Testudo. He doesn’t say that students veer out of their way to rub his nose for good luck at exam time. That they pile offerings of candy, flowers, notes, and even booze on the pedestal at Midterms and Finals.¹ Instead, the guide says Testudo used to be easy to steal² —but uses the pronoun “she” instead of “he.” Given her role today as a center of care, that fits.

One of the mothers in the group peers furtively at the mental health resources sheet. The group moves on. A self-conscious dad lags behind to take multiple photos. I want to take photos, too, but ask myself why. I have no good answer. It feels too private, this oh-so-public monument, this makeshift memorial. Instead, I decide to sit on a low wall nearby and sketch a word-photo on my iPad. These words, so inadequate to approximate the holiness of this place, save to the cloud because the University’s WiFi connects even outside.

Into the quiet of conversations, an airplane passes over the jangly rhythm of a truck’s backup alarm. Birds flit and chirp in the trees, the library doors open and close, open and close, joining the chorus of community.

Few people pass Testudo without at least looking over. Most stop. Pause. Like this student, who is now reading the note that says, “You are so loved,” printed in lovely tiny letters on a square yellow post-it. Or maybe they see the folded piece of notebook paper with a blue post-it saying “To the person I never met.” Or the torn-off scrap tucked beneath one of the strips of black electrical tape at the corner of the mental health resources paper that says, “We are so proud of you.” I imagine people writing things that they themselves need to hear, or wished they heard more often, or plan tell someone they care about. I pray the act of writing them brought some measure of peace. 

I grieve the understanding that I’m too reserved, too shy. I’ve hidden behind my professorial status, my decorum as mentor. I want to encourage everyone to check in on loved ones today—and everyone is a loved one. Tell people you appreciate them. Maybe it’s less awkward if we all do it.

I ache with longing for my students to know this, always. For my son, who is also a student here, to know always.

You are not alone. You are so loved. We are proud of you.

1. Testudo has his own Wikipedia page.

2. This website has a bit of history, including the time in 1947 before the Maryland - Johns Hopkins lacrosse game when Hopkins students stole the statue and buried it in Baltimore, 35 miles to the north. The line between reprisal and hazing was fuzzy back then.