Scenes from my kitchen table

Prologue:

My neighbor gave me a monarch butterfly chrysalis to take care of while she was out of town. The caterpillar had attached itself only a day before onto the bottom of the leaf of an Angelwing Begonia. Now, the plant and chrysalis sat on my kitchen table.

Days passed. At one point I thought that maybe this was it, that maybe this caterpillar wouldn’t transform into a butterfly after all. It felt too long, not right.

Scene 1: Wednesday, 9:30am

My morning was like any morning: coffee, catch up on the news, eat breakfast, clean up, all of the rote happenings of life that too often are tended to in a robotic fashion. But this morning, something extraordinary was about to happen. I know, change is constant, but how easy it is to dismiss the small, insignificant, or not, happenings of one’s day.

Scene 2: Wednesday, 1:30pm

My attention was caught, out of the corner of my eye. I noticed, but wondered how I hadn’t noticed earlier that day, that there was a drastic change in the chrysalis. It had turned from a brilliant green to almost black, and as I looked closer I saw colors, orange and red, butterfly wings alive below the surface of the casing.

I was instantly transfixed.

Scene 3: 2:00pm

It all happened quickly, with a blink of the eye. Bulges, forms pressing, the chrysalis split open. Within what seemed like only seconds the form emerged, crunched, a liquid seeping, forming a puddle onto the kitchen table. I recognized the markings on its wings, I’ve seen them my entire life but here the newly born creature was still small, still crunched from having lived in its cramped quarters for the last week.

Scene 3: 2:10pm - 2:45pm

I sat in amazement, transfixed by the new monarch’s movements, its form, the brilliant colors. As I sat, the monarch stretched, it breathed life into its wings, flexing, spreading, contracting. Its thorax was elongating, becoming hidden between its wings. I sat in awe. At times I had to remind myself to breathe. I stood to stretch my legs like the monarch stretched her wings. Together we moved. I breathed in a deep, life affirming breath. She breathed in a deep, life affirming breath. Together we lived.

Scene 4: 3:15pm

Slowly, after much spreading and stretching, this beautiful transformed life, this butterfly, looked as if she was ready to move on.

I moved the plant, with the empty chrysalis, and the butterfly, out to my balcony, and waited. Time slowed. Still I was transfixed. She moved; I sat and watched. Other than watching in awe, my mind was empty. I wanted for nothing except to take in the beauty that was right in front of me.

Scene 5: 3:45pm

At last, this beautiful creature flapped her wings and landed clumsily onto the balcony floor. She flopped this way and that, as if she had never flown before, because in truth, she hadn’t. I held my breath, tears streaming down my cheeks, so thankful for the chance to experience this amazing event. 

And again in a blink of an eye, she was airborne, flying with the breeze, a background of Carolina blue in contrast to her red and orange wings. 

Scene 6: 3:46pm

The last I saw of her was as she landed in a tree close by. I stood up and went inside. 

Epilogue:

Our days continued, me and the monarch, each of our moments a change from the previous one. But from this day, I saw that we were one, each part of the whole,  interconnected pieces of life. And we lived.