My sister Emmeline and I together chased the butterfly! ~William Wordsworth
I still think of it as the summer of the butterflies. We were about eight and seven, my sister and I. The school holidays lay before us—stretching from July to September under a canopy of shimmering blue with occasional glimpses of fluffy white polka dots.
School holidays seemed extra long in the country, and although we were both avid readers and had plenty of books, not much else was available in the rural hideaway that was our home. There wasn't much money to buy extras, but each year, at the start of the holidays our mother would come up with a creative theme—a project—a "holiday hobby" to help us fill the long weeks ahead.
We would always remember that particular year as special—a stamp album for my sister, a butterfly net for me. The stamp album was exciting, and opened up to our insatiable curiosity the whole world of philately, which our parents explained was the study and collection of stamps. And we became more aware of not just the philatelic world—but by extension the entire globe.
But for me, that summer belonged to the butterflies. I still remember the long, glorious hours in the overgrown lot next door, trampling through weeds and wildflowers, chasing butterflies I never caught. But I was content in the chase, and the laughter, and the sunshine.
I knew almost nothing then of symbols and metaphors. I little knew, that like Wordsworth, I was chasing the “historian of my infancy.” I saw only butterflies, and little understood concepts of pupa and metamorphosis, and transformation.
Perhaps that summer was so special because we later recognized those connections—recognized that it was the last of the shimmering blues and polka dot whites, before the encroaching tinges of gray gradually gave way to drab expanses and puffy blotches of darkness.
People often comment about the amazing relationship between my sister and me, and about the strong bonds in our family in general. I thank them, and I am grateful. Grateful for my family of butterflies. I am glad for the wings of support, the colors of harmony, and the brilliance of love.
But they didn’t come without the caterpillar years, and the chrysalis and the un-resting, and the struggle. They didn’t come without the trauma of addiction—of alcohol abuse and parental abandonment, of conflict and fracture, of unmet needs, and disillusionment.
In nature, the change from caterpillar to butterfly is radical but gradual. The process must complete its course. If interference occurs during the metamorphosis, the results are disastrous. But if the chrysalis is left alone, a new and splendid creation emerges at the end of the struggle, ready to take wing, and fill the eye with beauty.
But not all caterpillars are the same. And not all butterflies are the same. The God of boundless beauty, color, and diversity created many families of butterflies, with thousands of species. And each comes through its own chrysalis.
So too, for each of us, the struggle is not the same, the process is not the same. But the God of wisdom brings us through our own chrysalis to the blessing and the beauty beyond. So whenever I am tempted to think of all that wasn't and all that could have been—all that does not seem to satisfy my rules of logic, and justice, and fairness, and allocation—I think of the incredible gift I have been given.
And I realize that the blessings I see in the lives of others may also have come to them at great cost and struggle. Because for all of us, there is a chrysalis. But eventually, somewhere down the road, when the metamorphosis is complete, a butterfly takes flight.
To A Butterfly
I’ve watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly! Indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed
How motionless! – not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!
This plot of orchard-ground is ours;
My trees they are, my Sister's flowers;
Here rest your wings when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!
Come often to us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us on the bough!
We'll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days, when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.
(Version 1)
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STAY near me--do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find in thee,
Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart,
My father's family!
Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey:--with leaps and springs
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her, feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.
(Version 2)
By William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
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