The Lobster, by Diane Durant

The Lobster, by Arthur Dove (USA) 1908

The Lobster 

The life cycle of an American Lobster begins with less than favorable odds as it floats the water’s surface like a transparent mosquito. Only 1 in 1,000 will survive into adulthood, finish college in four years, find a good job, start a family, make their parents proud. 

I get it. It’s all I ever wanted, too. But like a young lobster molting, my soft outer shell made me easy prey, a thin skin made of fragile dreams and a fear, mostly of failure, but also snakes, drowning, floral patterned dresses. But I have a backbone. Unlike a young lobster hiding in its borrow until it’s better able to swim, I navigated an ocean of naysayers with aquatic-like grace, emerging from my burrows in my own time, shedding encumbrances like an avalanche.

Because I’m a survivor—existing on a diet of tenacity, fortitude, and hope. Lobsters are scavengers when necessary, even resorting to sponges when other delicacies are scarce. Crowded by a still life of luscious fruit and vegetables, Arthur Dove’s lobster drifts along the table’s edge, its lifeless claws no longer pinching or crushing, shredding or fighting, having curled and uncurled its abdomen in retreat for the last time —the white table cloth, its final surrender. 

The chance of seeing a white lobster is one in a million, its uniqueness more deadly than desirable. Pensive, musing, I devour a handful of grapes like a sacrament, thankful for my own camouflage.
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Diane Durant

Diane Durant works with image, text, and found objects to tell true stories, from paddling rivers and road trips to all the everyday stops in between. She is a graduate of Baylor University, Dallas Theological Seminary, and the University of Texas at Dallas where she currently serves as Associate Professor of Instruction and Director of the Comer Collection of Photography. She serves on the university's Committee for the Support of Diversity and Equity as well as the Social Justice Advisory Board for the WNBA's Dallas Wings organization. Diane is the former president of 500X Gallery in Dallas and past editor of The Grassburr, The Rope, Sojourn, and Reunion: The Dallas Review. Her poems have appeared in di-verse-city, riverSedge, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Stymie, the Texas Poetry Calendar, and The Spectacle. Her photographs have been exhibited widely and belong to the permanent collection of the National Park Service. Diane is a member of the Board of Directors for the Cedars Union, a non-profit arts incubator in North Texas, the LGBTQ Caucus Leadership Team of the Society for Photographic Education, and Chair of SPE’s South Central chapter. Her first monograph, Stories, 1986–88, was released by Daylight Books in January.