When Garden Club met a couple of weeks ago, one of our neighbors brought over a mesh butterfly cage. Three monarch chrysalises hung from the top of the enclosure, a string of gold against light green pupa.
“I thought the boys would enjoy these!” she said. I nearly started to cry right there on my front porch. Who does this? Who thinks of this? Although she and I shared a love of backyard gardening, the two of us barely knew one another.
But apparently, she knew me well enough to know a gift like this would be appreciated.
Over the next week and a half, the chrysalises were the first thing the boys visited when they woke up in the morning and in the afternoon they got home from school. In between snuggles with Rufus the dog before bed, they stared at the mesh enclosure until their eyes grew tired and sleepy, watching, waiting, hoping.
And then, it happened: Joey and Flappy (and later, Carnivorous), emerged from darkness into glorious, monarch-butterfly light.
I don’t know if I can all the way put into words the magic of setting them free - of bringing the mesh enclosure to the backyard and opening the top flap. Of watching the butterflies inch upwards, hopping across milkweed, before darting into the blue sky.
The boys, along with another one of our neighbors, named the butterflies. They danced for them. They cheered them on: “Come on, Joey! You can do it!” “Flappy, you got this, bro. Fly, Flappy, fly!”
Joey flew away first. Flappy took his time and waited another day. We don’t exactly know the timeline for Carnivorous, because his unexpected metamorphosis coincided with a previously-planned birthday party. (My apologies, Carnivorous).
Really, the whole thing was nothing short of magical, curiosity and gentleness our constant companion.
It’s this last idea that gets me, perhaps because those words, “curiosity and gentleness,” seem to have become a theme in my life as of late. A friend said those words to me recently and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them.
A book idea swirls around in my mind, one that wakes me at two in the morning with new revelations and old memories alike: I approach learning and researching and writing my way through it with curiosity and gentleness.
A health scare shows up in some blood work and I am invited into a different way of being in the world: I approach eating more greens and refraining from alcohol regularly twisting my body into a child’s pose with curiosity and gentleness.
The list goes on, as it often does, but still the phrase applies.
Gentle curiosity. Curious gentleness. An honoring of new ideas and new ways of doing things - a pause as we lean into noticing and asking questions we’ve never given ourselves permission to ask or answer before.
I don’t know what it is for you, but it makes me wonder if we’re a little like butterflies, after all: with curiosity and gentleness, we notice and learn. We refrain and honor. We inch upwards, hopping across milkweed, before darting into the blue sky.
It’s a thought.
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