“Without Change, There’d Be No Butterflies”
Project 365, Day 147/365
I sat, scrolling through some old drafts I started a while back, hoping for inspiration to finish something. There was a post draft from February I opened that had no title, so I wasn’t sure what it was. The only thing it had inside was a quote: “Without change, there’d be no butterflies.” There was no attribution. I have no idea where I heard that or who said it. So far, after a quick Google search, I’ve seen the quote attribute to Walt Disney, a seemingly random woman named Jayda Skidmore Harrison who probably just quoted herself, and Maya Angelou. Each source I find quotes someone else.
I did eventually find this more robust quote, cited to Maya Angelou:
“Without change, there would be no butterflies…I could learn a thing or two from the butterfly’s relationship with change. We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”
It’s a simple, almost basic quote. The kind of thing you’d find on a needlepoint pillow, or maybe even in loopy, script handwriting on a canvas in the HomeGoods art aisle (that my mom has probably already purchased). During my Google search, I found it being sold on many a mug on Etsy.
But you know, something doesn’t have to be sacred to be profound.
This weekend, as Charles and I explored a nearby nature center with friends—tucked away in a neighborhood we’ve driven by more times than I can count with no knowledge of the little gem that sat inside—said friends walked us over to a counter where a glass box of monarch butterflies were cookin’. They were all still in the chrysalis phase, dangling from the glass top of the box as if they were on hooks. There were no hooks.
I stood there, in my Old Navy shorts and Target sandals, mystified by how a creepy-crawly thing had the innate ability to dress itself better than I could.
Have you ever seen a monarch chrysalis? I hadn’t when I searched my memory. I had no idea that, at some point in the process of metamorphosis, they are the most perfect shade of jade green, studded with a collar of golden, gleaming dots. It truly looks like a work of art. Impossible that a caterpillar could have created that. Honestly, I stood there, in my Old Navy shorts and Target sandals, mystified by how a creepy-crawly thing had the innate ability to dress itself better than I could.
I’ve always been fascinated by the process of caterpillar to butterfly. It’s like a little miracle. A caterpillar knows what it needs to do. It’s been a ground creature its whole life, never imaging what it can be like the take on an entirely different being…from ground to air, but yet it trusts the process. Something calls it to give up everything it knows, wrap itself in silk, and wait, patiently, as the transformation happens. It doesn’t go, kicking and screaming. It doesn’t second guess itself. It doesn’t call up all its friends to talk them out of getting into that cocoon. It just listens to itself and comes out on the other end with wings. Completely transformed. A new animal.
Without change, there’d be no butterflies.
Change is hard man. I think about myself, and the utter crap I’ve dealt with in a body that feels like a stranger. But the person I am today as I sit here, clawing my way back to the body I had, I know I won’t quite fit in it the same way. I’m not that other Arlyn anymore. When I can move with ease again, I’ll take every step with purpose, with gratitude. I’ve gained such deep empathy for silent sufferers. I understand the loneliness of chronic conditions, even when you’re surrounded by people who love you. I’ll cherish dancing freely around my living room without the thought of discomfort or pain. I’ll run up and down the stairs with a (tired) smile, rather than defeated grunts.
I also think about quarantine when I read that quote and the last 15 months that Covid-19 forced its way into our lives. We went into our cocoons and came out different people. I know I did. I can’t tell you how often I just wanted to be home, hoping for canceled plans, for instance. While I’ll never deny I’m a homebody through and through, and my idea of a wonderful evening is leaving my imprint on the sofa after a great movie with some food, human connection—the human connection so many of us were denied for this long year+—is something I’ll never take for granted. The lack of it is going to be hard to forget for a lot of us.
It’s not easy being in the middle of stuff. The beginning always comes with the hope that things won’t last long, that it’ll turn around quickly, that it’s just a fluke. The end is glorious, light beaming on you from every angle. But that middle, that part where you’re wrapped up in your silk cocoon, in the dark, hanging from a glass ceiling from what appears to be, uh…nothing, that’s where the transformation happens. It’s hard. It SUCKS. But on the other side of it, you’ll come out transformed. A new animal. A butterfly.
See you tomorrow, FOAS.