I couldn't explain it. Didn't have to.

I teach English to Korean students using internet connections. Occasionally I ask students about their hobbies.

One day in class, a boy told me his hobby was “insects.”

When I asked him why he liked to study insects, he gave me the best answer I have ever heard: “Because, they are important to me.”

My interests, over the years, seem to have each started by falling out of the sky. I don’t know what causes or initiates an interest, or a love, or a friendship, or a connection to a piece of music. Somewhere between absolutely random and the flow of perfect logic I have camped out in a little blotch of life I like to consider artistic.

Sometimes this gets me into trouble. My artistic rendition of financial affairs and business matters has left me with one failed business (followed by bankruptcy) in its wake. My artistic approach to auto mechanics one time led me to take my car to the dealer to get the new license plates attached to the vehicle. My artistic approach to housekeeping has a maddening effect on my wife. On it goes.

My only explanation as to my joy taken in tortoises is the same as the Korean boy’s: Because, they are important to me.

Somehow, I managed to convey this rather abstract concept to my wife when we eventually made contact over cell phones, while she was still on the other (east) side of South Dakota.
She was sweet enough not to ask, “Do you need a tortoise?” The artist has no category for such a question. The answer would have been, “uh-huh,” in any case.

She did ask where we were going to put the tortoise’s living quarters.

“I have a cunning plan,” I said, artistically, avoiding elaboration at this point.
I reminded her that this was not a tarantula, and that Russian tortoises eat only leafy plants and veggies (not blood worms, ick, or crickets or mice).

I also mentioned that the aquatic turtles required a truckload of gear and water and filters and blood worms, ick.

Set in relief by a hissing, bird-eating tarantula larger than a man’s hand; a turtle in need of an elaborate, stinking aquarium; and the keeping of live blood worms, ick, in the fridge; a Russian tortoise seems as easy to take care of as a ceramic figurine.

My wife was not stricken by the thought of owning a tortoise, but, she was stricken by my being stricken by the thought of owning a tortoise. She could tell this was important to me. She knew I could not begin to explain why.

That’s how love works sometimes.