“Don't give up on the mission, or you won't find the turtles.”
Oddly specific and simplistic as this advice might be, it was significant enough for me to jot down in the summer of 2011. I was standing at the shore of Spreckels Lake in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Before me a live turtle basked in the sun atop the back of a sculpted one.
The sight is common enough that San Francisco travel bloggers point it out to visitors, or so I’ve since learned, but it was an unexpected joy for me that July morning. The sight of turtle atop turtle delighted me so much that it inspired the following drawing, which I promptly turned into my first animated cartoon.
Here’s that cartoon
And the individual drawings
The Fulfillment of Exhaustion
A few days earlier I’d been in the middle of a week-long multimedia journalism fellowship across the San Francisco Bay at the University of California, Berkeley when I mentioned three potential book projects I was weighing to another attendee. Intrigued by the story about Melville Jacoby and my obvious interest in him, my “fellow fellow” urged me to follow my instinct for a book about him and his wartime adventures. Aware that she had covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I was buoyed by her enthusiasm for and confidence in that idea.
I was gravitating toward that project even before her encouragement. Ahead of the fellowship I’d even toyed with the possibility that I might have a chance to do a little research into Mel’s life and various links he’d had to the Bay Area while I was there. The thought was enticing enough that I even brought along notes and photocopies of a few relevant pieces of information, like old letters and envelopes with San Francisco addresses connected to various friends and classmates of Mel’s.
After the workshop I caught a bus over the Bay Bridge and began the journey depicted in the cartoon. I figured I’d head for some of the addresses to see if anyone might still be around who knew Mel. I also had nearly an entire day after I checked out of my hotel before it would be time to board my return train from Emeryville to Portland.
The idea I’d actually discover anything useful to the book was more than a long shot and much of the information was decades out of date, but I figured I could make the most of my day with a good excuse to explore San Francisco by foot. At the very least I could get a sense of how the places mentioned in my research materials might have changed. Good reporter that I was, I also planned to ask anyone I might meet if they’d heard of any of the people whose addresses I had, if not of Mel himself.
I ended up walking more than twenty miles up, down, and along San Francisco’s streets before I reached Golden Gate Park. Exhausted but fulfilled, I happened upon the turtles shortly before I had to find transit back to Emeryville. Their discovery was treat enough, but it also reminded me that tenacity mixed with curiosity and a sprinkle of confidence produces unexpected and satisfying — often joyful — results.
A few days after my trip I heard from the family of one of the people I’d asked around about in Chinatown. The timing may have been coincidental — I’d also reached out separately to another relative whose business info I’d found — but I like to believe word had gotten around that a random man was asking about him in his old neighborhood. Even if it hadn’t, the journey had been as much the point as the connection.
Looking for this person’s one-time address gave me an excuse to start my walk. I continued it by searching for a few other addresses of note. Instead of fast traveling from location to location via taxi or transit, walking let me explore San Francisco and ultimately led me to the turtles. That would not have happened had I simply checked each stop off with no thought of the urban fabric connecting one to the next. In turn, seeing the turtles inspired me to experiment in a new medium. I was energized at just the right moment: at the outset of what would become years of exhaustive research and writing that ultimately became my first book.
The joy of comfort in one’s own skin
It’s really simpler than that. Finding that sunbathing turtle was intrinsically fun. It was also refreshing to dabble in telling a story via cartoon.
I can’t count how often in the twelve years since I drew those pictures I’ve virtually rearranged the deck chairs on my career by reorganizing computer file structures or pruning long lists of story ideas. Whenever I do, I come across scans of those cartoons. Instead of doing anything with them I usually just plop the files into a new folder or move them around story idea lists then promptly forget them.
Then, a few months ago, I was looking for something else in my basement and saw the notebook I’d taken with me to San Francisco. I’d drawn the cartoons in that notebook and jotted the little tidbit that opened this newsletter in there as well. Holding the hard copies in my hand again gave me a far different perspective than abstractly-named jpeg files. I liked them. I actually liked them.
That surprised me. I’d previously dismissed the sketches as rushed, simplistic, and a bit boring. This time nothing negative came to mind. This time I was proud of the drawings. I was even more surprised by that sense of pride itself. It’s so easy to dream up reasons not to be proud of one’s own work. This time I didn’t minimize my creativity and gave myself permission to appreciate my work without second-guessing the drawings or worrying about whether others might think poorly of them.
I’ve never considered myself much of a visual artist, much less a cartoonist or illustrator. I remember endless frustration with attempts to sketch and draw throughout my childhood and teenage years. That frustration didn’t go away when I became an adult.
Visual expression has long vexed me. I still viscerally feel the discomfort and shame from teachers pointing out line-crossing crayon marks and similar sins (So. Much. Internalized. Negativity.). A palpable sense of inferiority and embarrassment accompanies any memory I conjure of childhood doodles, classroom drawings, or other art. Well into my teens and twenties I frequently compared my artistic skills (to say nothing of other skills and traits) to those of my peers. I invariably came away with the perception that many, if not most, were more artistically gifted than me. Indeed, a number of my closest friends were and are outstanding artists in various media. That truth hasn’t changed on reflection. What has shifted is my need to compare myself to them.
Is that fact alone one of the sweetest fruits of aging? I don’t think I’m blowing anyone’s mind suggesting that one gift given by the passing of years is the ebbing of self-consciousness. I am far from lacking challenges, flaws and hangups, but I still feel quite fortunate that my anxieties are less frequent and more grounded in reality than they were in years past. Discarding the baggage of self-consciousness allows me to more purely enjoy something like these drawings. It’s nice to comfortably declare “I made this! I had fun with this! I experimented with a medium I don’t typically work with!”
It’s difficult to stay the course in any challenge. It’s probably even more difficult when you are — like I was that day in San Francisco and am again — a freelancer with uncertain career prospects and not insignificant uncertainties about one’s next steps. Why keep at something that isn’t getting you somewhere? One needs to know how to move on, how to let things go, and when it’s time to recalibrate.
But as was the case twelve years ago, sometimes you get a hunch you can’t shake and a chance to act upon it. That day, my hunch was that I might learn more about Mel Jacoby, or at least about some of the people I was learning about who were connected to him. I didn’t necessarily find what I’d expected to find, but I did find other clues and inspiration that, in turn, prompted more meandering searches, different serendipitous discoveries, and new unexpected joys. All of these experiences eventually helped make me a published author and shaped my future.
It’s been awhile since I’ve checked in on The Scenic Route. Let’s get going again and see what we might find. Wherever your journey takes you and whatever way you travel, it’s likely that when you begin you won’t know what you’ll discover along the way, but if you keep traveling you just might find something wonderful.
Whether your feet hurt.
Whether you're hungry
Whether you think you're wasting time and missing out.
Keep walking. Just up ahead turtles upon turtles await you.