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Life as a Hermit Crab

by Rebekah Shardy

A brother visiting Florida sent me a hermit crab as a pet when I was a child. It was dead on arrival. I felt sad it traveled so far from the comforting arms of its mother-Sea.

Like a hermit crab, I’ve temporarily inhabited my share of short-term shells or homes. Eighteen to be exact. I wasn’t a military brat. Like nomadic people, I believe we do not own the place we stand. We borrow and leave it unspoiled for the those who come after us. Even when I earned six-figures, I did not want to possess a house only to find it possessed me.

In youth or poverty, I lived with relatives. Caring for a dying relation in another state when I was 60, I made a hotel my home, awakened weekends by ambulances for overdosed neighbors. 

My first apartment was Victorian with lavender walls. A tomcat snuck in a screenless window and sprayed fumes so noxious I had to move. My family once lived in a basement apartment so cold we made a walk-in cedar closet into our son’s bedroom. The landlady regularly burst into the bathroom while I sat on the toilet to use her washing machine. Another time we had an apartment with a caved-in bedroom ceiling, a condo where there were break-ins, an apartment where a man held his wife hostage with a gun above us, and a four-plex that was visited by SWAT. Life said “move!”

The best was a bungalow I chose for its covered patio that looked out on a yard hidden by lilacs, an ancient apple tree, clothesline, and ash tree I laid beneath to catch leaves and make wishes. A garden path led to a statue of Mary where my cat, a ‘Cat-holic,’ loved to keep vigil. The landlord sold it to someone who charged twice the rent. 

In fact my landlords’ selling of properties led to my rent doubling six times. I also moved twice to care for family members. Besides disastrous ‘nudges,’ moves also followed improved fortunes. Impressed how I improved one house, a landlord moved in herself. 

I just moved into independent senior living. My neighbors, coming from homes where they lived for decades, say it’s an adjustment. It’s just another shell for me. Real hermit crabs even use bottle caps and pen caps from ocean trash to shield their tender bodies. 

When I trained hospice volunteers, I explained their visits were keenly important because our external lives shrink as we age so we can focus on our inner being. We began life in a crib, moved into the world seeking big houses, but with age downsize to an apartment, and finally a single bed in a single room. 

When I outgrow the last iteration, I will shrug it off and toddle into a place where shelter and armor are not needed. Back into the vast mystery of the sea … that has always owned me. 

Rebekah Shardy is a professional speaker, poet, playwright and author of "Indivisible: Nature, People, Spirit," and "98 Things a Woman Should Do in Her Lifetime." Creating community is her passion.  

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September 2024 Updates