Asakiyume mita

I've spend the last two-and-a-half days thinking about and trying to care for a butterfly who came out of its crysalis with a malformed wing. It's as if something got wrapped around the wing and pinched it. Here's the picture I took on the day I noticed it (two days ago):



That day was a sunny day and warm, a good day to enter the butterfly stage of your life and take flight. At first I thought, maybe it can pump enough fluid into that wrinkled wing to get it to unfold. But no, it couldn't.

So it was doomed. It was never going to be flying anywhere. Butterfly raising web pages told me I could make a pet out of it, or I could euthanize it (methods described, nothing awful but the concept was very depressing)--or, unstated, but clearly a choice, I could just leave it be, in which case it would die all on its own.

It was such a sunny day. This is life in the world as a butterfly, friend, I wanted to say. You can't fly, so your life is destined to be quite brief, but I hope you really love this sun. It must feel strange not to be a caterpillar anymore.

Then yesterday was rainy and cold. The butterfly hung on to its spot all day. I brought it flowers because one thing the butterfly raising pages said was you could offer a newly hatched butterfly an array of flowers. But it was too cold a day, maybe, for the butterfly to try to test out the flowers. And I don't know how long the nectar stays nectar-y after the flowers are cut.

Today is sunny (ish), and the butterfly was walking about a little. I read on the butterfly pages about making a honey-water or sugar-water mixture. Put it in a saucer and let them taste it with their feet, the page said. When they realize what it is, they will drink some, if they feel like it.

( two more butterfly pictures, with the flowers I tried tempting it with )

So I made some honey-water and held it where the butterfly could taste it, and it did taste it, and then climbed onto my hand--but when I lifted my hand, it fell fluttering off--but then gamely caught hold of a twig and started climbing up again. I tried again to interest it in the honey-water, and again it climbed onto my hand. I thought I'd carry it over to a stand of cosmos--then it could do the butterfly thing of drinking nectar, have another experience of life as a butterfly before it died. So I walked very slowly and carefully, and the butterfly sat on my hand, calm.

And then a big gust of wind came and carried it off, I don't know where. I looked around my yard, but couldn't see it. But I'm thinking, this means it even--sort of--experienced flight, a little.

I'm glad to have known this butterfly.

Meanwhile, I have a chrysalis on the siding of my house that's just about ready to hatch. I hope it will be healthy and able to fly.

No crossing this divide

You think of something to tell someone. This is something that someone would enjoy. You reach in your mind for that person, but there is no way to contact them. They are gone. You could write down the thing you wished to share, make a letter to the deceased, or you can speak the words out loud, but there is an uncrossable chasm between you and that person now.

That's when you sense the loss.

A lesser loss

Time changes things. In the house, most nights, just two, a child and a parent. The evening deepens; they clear away dinner. The child says something melancholy, nostalgic. The parent offers a hug. They sit locked in an embrace, quiet. The child wipes away tears; the parent doesn't bother to. But it's all silent. Neither makes a sound. There's no tragedy here; it's just a moment.

posted out of order: written October 4